Help decide - Dominate Pers or Enervation for Sorcerer

[Chrizzt]

Hello!

My vampire themed shadow sorcerer might hit level 9 tomorrow, and my DM is granting me a free Lvl 5 spell known: either Dominate Person or Enervation. No chance of later retraining.

Both are thematically very fitting. My metamagic feats are subtle spell and quicken, and I intend to take twin at lvl 10. I asked: for my dm both spells can be twinned.

My con is 14 (so no overly large hp base to begin with; might increase it to 16 in the future), charisma 20.

I already have some drain abilities (from items and abilities), so while cool I'm not sure that Enervation can often be used to its fullest. So far I seldom get hit, and when, its terribly high damage...

Dominate Person, however, is restricted to humanoids, and allows a save each round if damage is taken. Is the spell also useful at higher levels, to your experience? I also have Suggestion. Dominate Monster might replace it at a higher level, but that is a lvl 8 spell, and spellslots that high are pricy. A twinned dominate person stays lvl 5 and would cost not too many sorcery points.

Which would you take? I like both!

[nickl_2000]

What kind of campaign is it? Are you running a book or a custom module? The big bads that you have been fighting, are they humanoid or are they something else?

[Chrizzt]

What kind of campaign is it? Are you running a book or a custom module? The big bads that you have been fighting, are they humanoid or are they something else?

It is a homebrew setting and campaign, quite bordering on a sandbox mode. My char is also a Count with a small fief, so social interaction is important. I already have important profs like persuasion and deception, though.

The big evil masterminds were mostly humanoid so far (one was an elf, though), of a kind with predictably good wis saves, however.

I think none of them will be a wrong choice. But if you are forced to take one and keep in your repertoire forever up to high levels (which we will eventually reach, pc death excluded), which would you take? I dont have experience with high level campaigns..

[Contrast]

Dominate Person, however, is restricted to humanoids, and allows a save each round if damage is taken.

Just to say they get a save each time they take damage, not a save each round they take damage.

Personally I'd take Dominate Person because I don't really like Enervation but the usefulness of Dominate Person depends pretty heavily on what type of game you're playing. If social manipulation is likely to see any legwork, Dominate Person is golden. If you spend most of your time in dungeons fighting monsters...eh.

[Corran]

I don't see much point for enervation for on casters. Too many limitations that make it too risky for my liking unless you are in melee, and I would prefer to rely on teleports or heavy obscurement (eg darkness) whenever engaged in melee.

Dominate person is equally disappointing as a combat spell, due to the disadvantage and also because of how it limits you to humanoids, but at least it has some out of combat use. Not much if you get it now (since the duration is very short), but later on when you will be able to upcast it will be better (always for out of combat purposes). Outclassed at level 15 by dominate monster, though it's worth noting that with dominate person you can get max duration earlier and at a lower slot cost. I guess you could use dominate monster in combat too when you have a surprise round (use it on someone with ranged attacks, so an archer or caster, to minimize the damage they'll take, hence the number of saves they'll get to make).

Between the two, I'd go with dominate person. A little more useful overall and (eventually) more fun to use.

[Chrizzt]

Thank you all for your kind input! I'm strongly tending towards Dominate Person so far. Even though I have good social skills with my char, social interactions with humanoid will come very often due to RP reasons.