What Use is Awaken?

[Jarlhen]

I ask because the charm condition is only slightly useful in most situations, considering the many other options at your disposal. It gives you advantage on charisma checks and the target won't attack you. I mean there are uses for it against NPCs and such, sure.

But if I Awaken a creature, give it 10 int, and it's charmed by you, it has no real reason to follow you around and do what you say, does it? I mean even a tree with int 10. It looks at you somewhat favorably, but why would it hang out with you? You're not its best friend, you're more like a friendly acquaintance if we go by other charm spell descriptions.

So does it require some pretty significant hand-waving from the group to ignore the fact that this now Awakened creature is under no obligation to hang out with you? That it probably has very little motivation to follow you or even do what you say?

I realize this is very much a DM interpretation type of situation, which is why I ask. How would other DMs run this?

I am specifically interested in non-familiar or animal companion types. Those are easy to deal with. I mean things that don't already have a connection to you. Like a tree or a bear or a dinosaur. Also, for the sake of it, imagine animal friendship or similar spell having already been cast, so the creature isn't outright aggressive from the onset.

[Arkhios]

Well, awaken has tremendous roleplaying value. If you treat the creature well, it might get attached to you and consider you a friend worth fighting for/with.

I assume you don't have pets, then? If you're kind enough to them, they'll follow you anywhere they can, and depending on creature might consider you as part of its pack and even protect you (dogs especially are like this).

[Jarlhen]

Well, awaken has tremendous roleplaying value. If you treat the creature well, it might get attached to you and consider you a friend worth fighting for/with.

I assume you don't have pets, then? If you're kind enough to them, they'll follow you anywhere they can, and depending on creature might consider you as part of its pack and even protect you (dogs especially are like this).

Pets don't have 10 intelligence and are capable of speaking your language. They're also not feral, they're domesticated. They are literally bred to be your companions.

[Ninja_Prawn]

But if I Awaken a creature, give it 10 int, and it's charmed by you, it has no real reason to follow you around and do what you say, does it?

Nope. I see Awaken as primarily a plot device to explain where awakened creatures come from. For example, I once ran a campaign where all of the PCs were recently-awakened animals.

In many situations, I expect the PCs would be able to persuade the awakened creatures to help them with no difficulty, because their goals align (such as 'let's work together to not get killed by these raging monsters'). I mean, awakened trees would probably be friendly to most druids anyway, charmed or not.

And with druids being prepared casters, they can make sure they only prepare Awaken when they think it's going to be useful. That helps a lot since you can probably predict when you're going to be around awaken-able things that will be willing to fight for you.

[hymer]

A lot is dependent on the DM, but there's some indication on p. 245 of the DMG that you're supposed to be able to convince an Awakened creature to help you with charisma checks; which you'd have advantage on while the Charm lasts.

So how would I run it? I'd adjudicate it on a case by case basis, and I'd likely try to counsel the player somewhat as to my intentions. If you awaken a dog or a horse, I'd see little trouble with that. Treat it well, and the animal will be tremedously loyal to you (though not fearless). A wolf would need to learn not to be so afraid of people, but could soon learn to do much the same. A brown bear, well, bears aren't easy to frighten, so the problem there might be more the other way around. Though famously, the one riding the carnosaur always has the right of way.
I'd generally have the animal consider you a close friend, generally to be obeyed, within the first month. After that I'd have it gain more independence, and as the spell suggests, have it behave according to how the first month went. It will develop some personal quirks or goals.
It gets a lot more tricky with plants, because there's so little to base a personality on. But I think I'd generally have them be reluctant to travel, but quite content to watch over an area for you. Trees don't feel pain or fear, and I would have an Awakened tree reflect that, at least early on. After a while, the tree might become wiser, and it might start to make efforts to spread its own seeds, seedlings or however the plant reproduces.
I might have an oak tree be much more likely to be and remain protective of an area (because oaks let a lot of light through, making for a lively undergrowth, and they sometimes grow on the edge of a forested area, protecting other trees from ther wind; not much to go on, but something).

[Jarlhen]

Nope. I see Awaken as primarily a plot device to explain where awakened creatures come from. For example, I once ran a campaign where all of the PCs were recently-awakened animals.

In many situations, I expect the PCs would be able to persuade the awakened creatures to help them with no difficulty, because their goals align (such as 'let's work together to not get killed by these raging monsters'). I mean, awakened trees would probably be friendly to most druids anyway, charmed or not.

And with druids being prepared casters, they can make sure they only prepare Awaken when they think it's going to be useful. That helps a lot since you can probably predict when you're going to be around awaken-able things that will be willing to fight for you.

Not disagreeing with anything here. Awaken has 1000g cost associated with it though. If its purpose was primarily short "alliances" or such, wouldn't it make more sense to have it be 1k investment like scry? I'm thinking the devs must have had something more beneficial in mind?

[Arkhios]

Pets don't have 10 intelligence and are capable of speaking your language. They're also not feral, they're domesticated. They are literally bred to be your companions.

Try to see outside the boxed set of rules for a while.

I mean, if a domesticated animal can get attached to you, surely a sentient (=awakened) creature can do the same? How do you suppose people make friends? I doubt anyone would befriend someone whom they didn't like. The key is, if you're kind to someone or somethimg, that someone or something will most likely like you. It's not rocket science, is it?

[Hawkstar]

One of the effects of Charm is advantage on charisma checks against them. You can get people to do what you want through charisma checks (Persuasion, most notably).

You can awaken a creature or plant, then talk things over with them. What motivation would it have to help you? Why don't you ask it?

[Contrast]

Lets imagine that you wake up with amnesia (or at least your entire past life being incredibly vague and foggy). You feel significant gratitude to the person who revived you and otherwise have no real knowledge or connections in the world.

Do you tag along with this person at least in the short term or do you immediately set off on your own?

I think its pretty clear you'd stick with the person in the short term at least until you'd got your feet and understood the world a bit better. Would you fight for the person? That depends entirely on your personality, temperament and situation and, I feel, has little to do with the spell itself.

[djreynolds]

For the original beast master, it was worth it. Especially if your DM played along and didn't have the wolf say goodbye.

[bokodasu]

Fun? I had a player Awaken a tree. He asked it to come adventure with the party - not fight or anything, just stand around being a tree. And then once it saved the entire party by letting them climb it to escape a flooding river. (If a party member is a sneaky type, trees are also great at casting shadows.)

It's not like there's much else to do with your money in 5e, why not put in the effort to make a family of bear friends who will share their porridge and keep you up to date on the local gossip?

It's an admittedly situational spell, but it can definitely be put to creative uses. (Unless you have a DM who hates creative uses, which hopefully you'll know by the time you can cast the spell.)

[RickAllison]

Fun? I had a player Awaken a tree. He asked it to come adventure with the party - not fight or anything, just stand around being a tree. And then once it saved the entire party by letting them climb it to escape a flooding river. (If a party member is a sneaky type, trees are also great at casting shadows.)

It's not like there's much else to do with your money in 5e, why not put in the effort to make a family of bear friends who will share their porridge and keep you up to date on the local gossip?

It's an admittedly situational spell, but it can definitely be put to creative uses. (Unless you have a DM who hates creative uses, which hopefully you'll know by the time you can cast the spell.)

And now I want to play a Druid X/Rogue 2 who just goes around with moving vegetation.