A first level spell with no damage dice and no upcasting, and it still ends more fights than most of the things that go boom. Come fight me about it.
Today we’re looking at a 1st level conjuration spell called Entangle. Available to Druids, and to Rangers by way of the Tasha’s optional list in 2014 and straight off the class list in 2024, plus a Lotusden halfling, a Fochlucan bandore, and anyone willing to spend Magic Initiate on it. You point at a patch of ground, weeds and vines erupt out of it, everybody standing there makes a Strength save, and the ones who fail are stuck. Restrained, speed zero, everyone swinging at them with advantage, until they burn an action trying to rip free.
Sitting at a range of 90 feet, a casting time of one action, and a concentration length of one minute, Entangle is the druid’s opening move the way Bless is the cleric’s. It covers a 20 foot square, it asks for the save almost nothing is good at, and even the creatures who pass spend the rest of the fight wading through difficult terrain. You’ll hear people call it one of the most underrated spells in the game in the same thread where someone else calls it a gamble you can’t afford. I’m in the first camp, and I’ll show you the numbers.
The 2024 Player’s Handbook also touched this spell in two small places, and one of them is a real rules shift on the escape roll. First the rules as written, and remember, you can always fight me in the comments if you read it different. That’s what makes this fun.
RAW
- Casting Time: 1 action
- Range: 90 feet
- Components: V, S
- Duration: Concentration, up to 1 minute
Here’s the 2014 text, straight from the Player’s Handbook, page 238:
“Grasping weeds and vines sprout from the ground in a 20-foot square starting from a point within range. For the duration, these plants turn the ground in the area into difficult terrain. A creature in the area when you cast the spell must succeed on a Strength saving throw or be restrained by the entangling plants until the spell ends. A creature restrained by the plants can use its action to make a Strength check against your spell save DC. On a success, it frees itself. When the spell ends, the conjured plants wilt away.”
Let’s slow down on that, because this spell gets misread in both directions.
“Grasping weeds and vines sprout from the ground in a 20-foot square starting from a point within range.” Sprout from the ground. You do not need plants already there. Stone dungeon floor, frozen lake, deck of a ship, the vines come up anyway, because this is a conjuration now and the spell brings its own plants. Old timers will remember a version that needed real vegetation, and we’ll get to that in the history. The area is a 20 foot square, four grid squares by four, and you pick where it starts, so you’re sliding a 20 by 20 box around the map from 90 feet away. It’s a square on the ground, which matters when we get to flying things.
“For the duration, these plants turn the ground in the area into difficult terrain.” Even if every enemy makes the save, that patch costs double movement for a full minute, and that includes your friends, so drop it on the bad guys’ side of the room, not the middle of the brawl.
“A creature in the area when you cast the spell must succeed on a Strength saving throw or be restrained by the entangling plants until the spell ends.” Two things. The save happens once, when you cast it. Creatures who walk in later don’t save, they just eat the difficult terrain, so cast it when the enemies are bunched up, not before they arrive. And the save is Strength, which is the whole sales pitch. Dexterity and Wisdom saves are what monsters are built to pass. Strength saves are the soft spot on anything that isn’t a giant, a brute, or a big animal. A goblin has an 8 Strength. A mind flayer has an 11. An archmage has a 10. Those are the creatures this spell was written for.
The payoff for a failed save is restrained, one of the best conditions a first level slot can buy. Speed zero, so they can’t close on your squishies. Attack rolls against them have advantage, including ranged attacks, which is better than prone. Their own attacks have disadvantage, and so do their Dexterity saves, so your wizard’s Fireball just got meaner.
“A creature restrained by the plants can use its action to make a Strength check against your spell save DC. On a success, it frees itself.” It’s a Strength check, not a Strength saving throw. In 2014 that rules out the proficiency bonus, it rules out Magic Resistance, which only helps against saves, and it rules out Legendary Resistance, because legendary monsters burn those on failed saves and this is a check. A creature with a plus 0 Strength rolls a flat d20 against your DC, every turn, and spends its whole action to do it. Even when it succeeds, that’s a turn it didn’t attack anyone, and it’s still standing in difficult terrain.
So let’s watch it work. Level 1 druid, Wisdom 16, spell save DC 13. Four goblins come around the corner in a clump and you drop Entangle on them from 60 feet back. Goblin Strength is 8, a minus 1, so each one needs a 14 or better to save. That’s a 35 percent pass rate, so on average you’ve restrained two or three of them with one action. On their turn, each stuck goblin either swings at disadvantage or burns its action on that same minus 1 check against DC 13, another 35 percent shot. Meanwhile your rogue has advantage on every arrow, which means Sneak Attack every round with nobody adjacent. One first level slot, most of an encounter off the board. “It’s just goblins, John.” Sure. Now do it to a mind flayer with its 11 Strength and watch it spend a turn losing a wrestling match to a shrub.
“When the spell ends, the conjured plants wilt away.” And it ends when your concentration drops, so guard your concentration like it’s a spell slot, because it is.
At Higher Levels
Short section, because there isn’t one. Entangle has no upcasting text in either edition. A 1st level slot and a 5th level slot produce the same 20 foot square and the same save, so always cast it from your lowest slot. What does scale is your spell save DC, which climbs with your Wisdom and proficiency, so the spell you cast at level 1 is quietly harder to escape at level 11. That’s why it shows up in so many “first level spells that stay good” lists.
Limits and Cheeses
A few things to know before you vine bomb everything that moves.
It only works on things touching the ground. The area is a square, and the plants sprout from the ground, so a dragon hovering 15 feet up is out. Where the line sits for a creature a couple of feet off the floor is a DM call, but the mainstream read is flyers are out, and that’s the single biggest reason Faerie Fire stays in the conversation next to it.
Plenty of creatures are immune to the restrained condition. Air elementals, ghosts, swarms. Read the stat block before you spend the slot.
The save is only on the cast. If the big bad passes, you’ve bought a 20 foot patch of difficult terrain and a minute of your concentration, which is fine but not thrilling. Web keeps forcing saves every turn a creature is in it, and that’s the main thing the Web versus Entangle threads argue about.
And it’s concentration, the tax on every good druid spell. Entangle competes with Spike Growth, Moonbeam, Conjure Animals, and eventually much bigger things for the one slot you have.
I’ll keep it short here, because the real uses, the Hex and Cutting Words tricks on the escape check, the dispel argument, the teleport argument, and the cursed stuff all live in the companion post. Go read the Entangle uses post for that. This one is about what the spell is and where it came from.
The 2014 version versus the 2024 version
This is the question I get every time a classic spell comes up, so let’s settle it. Did Entangle change in the 2024 Player’s Handbook?
Mostly no, with two real changes and one rewording. Same 1st level conjuration, same one action, same 90 feet, same verbal and somatic components, same 20 foot square, same concentration up to a minute, same Strength save, same restrained condition, same difficult terrain, still no upcasting. Page 268 this time.
The first real change is the escape roll. In 2014 a restrained creature makes “a Strength check against your spell save DC.” In 2024 it makes “a Strength (Athletics) check against your spell save DC.” That one word in parentheses means proficiency applies. A creature with Athletics proficiency, which covers a lot of the brutes, fighters, and trained soldiers in the monster manual, adds its proficiency bonus to the escape roll in 2024 where in 2014 it rolled raw Strength. Against goblins and wizards nothing changes. Against a bandit captain or a gladiator, the 2024 escape is a few points easier for them. A small nerf on the monster side, and a matching buff when it’s your fighter trying to get out of an enemy druid’s vines.
The second real change is who has to save. The 2014 text says “a creature in the area.” The 2024 text says “each creature (other than you) in the area.” So in 2024, if you drop Entangle on your own square, you’re exempt from the save by rule. In 2014 the caster standing inside the square saves like everyone else, and a lot of tables house ruled that away anyway. 2024 wrote the house rule in.
The rewording is cosmetic. “Grasping weeds and vines sprout from the ground in a 20-foot square starting from a point within range” became “grasping plants sprout from the ground in a 20-foot square within range,” and “the conjured plants wilt away” became “they disappear when the spell ends.” Same spell, fewer words.
One more edition note that isn’t in the spell text. In 2014 Entangle was a druid spell only, until Tasha’s Cauldron handed it to rangers as an optional list addition in 2020. In 2024 it’s on the ranger list outright, which is why you see so much more ranger Entangle talk on the 2024 forums.
History
Now the part I love, because Entangle is an old druid spell and watching it change tells you how the druid changed.
It was not in the original 1974 game. Druids only arrived as a player class in 1976 with the Eldritch Wizardry supplement, and that first druid spell list, Faerie Fire, Predict Weather, Purify Water and friends, did not include Entangle. It shows up two years later in the 1978 Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Player’s Handbook, page 54, as a 1st level druid spell of the Alteration school. Range 8 inches on the tabletop, which is 80 feet indoors, duration one turn, area a 4 inch diameter circle, verbal, somatic, and material components, a casting time of 3 segments, and a saving throw for half effect. And the old spell did not conjure anything. It animated the plants already in the area, “grasses, weeds, bushes, and even trees,” and if you failed the save you were held fast for the full duration, out of the fight. Make the save and your movement was still cut in half. No plants, no spell, which is why old school druids kept it for the wilderness and grumbled in the dungeon.
Second edition, the 1989 Player’s Handbook on page 200, kept the shape and stretched the numbers. Still a 1st level priest spell of the Plant sphere, still Alteration, range out to 80 yards, duration one turn, area a 40 foot cube, holy symbol as the material component. Any creature in or entering the area was subject to it, a successful save meant you could crawl out at 10 feet per round, and the book told the DM that huge or very strong creatures might shrug it off depending on how tough the local plants were.
Third edition, 2000 and then 3.5 in 2003 on page 227, is where rangers got it for the first time. Druid 1, Ranger 1, and Plant domain clerics. Transmutation now. Long range, 400 feet plus 40 per level, and the area grew to a 40 foot radius spread. Duration one minute per level, and the save became Reflex for partial effect. Fail and you were entangled, which was its own condition, minus 2 to attacks, minus 4 to Dexterity, and a Concentration check to cast anything. Breaking free took a full round action against a flat DC 20 Strength or Escape Artist check, and the plants tried to grab you again every round. Save and you could still only move at half speed through it.
Fourth edition, in Player’s Handbook 2 in 2009 on page 87, turned Entangle into a 9th level druid daily attack power. Hit a burst, creatures took damage and were immobilized until they saved, the area became a zone that slowed enemies who started their turn in it, and the druid’s beast form melee attacks in the zone crit on an 18 to 20. Very 4e.
Then 5e in 2014 built the version we’ve been talking about. Back to 1st level, back to druid only, rewritten as Conjuration for the first time because the plants now sprout out of nowhere, a 20 foot square at 90 feet, one Strength save, restrained, an action and a Strength check to escape, and difficult terrain for everyone. Tasha’s handed it to rangers in 2020, and the 2024 book made that official, exempted the caster, and added Athletics to the escape roll.
So the spell went from “the druid makes the existing bushes grab you, if there are bushes,” to a 40 foot radius trap in 3e, to a daily power in 4e, to the small, cast it anywhere lockdown 5e has been running for twelve years.
Opinion
Entangle is the best spell most druids stop preparing too early. At levels 1 through 4 it’s a hard opener, a Strength save on a clump of enemies and advantage for the whole party against whoever fails. At levels 8 and up people start calling it outgrown, and I get the instinct, because your concentration is worth more and your enemies get stronger. But the DC scales with you, the 2014 escape roll ignores proficiency and Legendary Resistance entirely, and a 1st level slot that restrains one high value target for even a round is still a great trade at level 12. The things that kill it are flyers and high Strength brutes, and you can read a stat block.
Its rival is Web, a level higher and repeating its save every turn. They’re both good, and a party with both is nasty. But for a druid or a 2024 ranger picking a first level control spell, I’ll take the vines, and I’ll hold that hill until a dragon proves me wrong from 15 feet up.
I’m curious where you land though. Do you keep Entangle prepared past tier one, or does it fall off your list the day you get Spike Growth? And Entangle or Faerie Fire, same level, same size, if you could only prepare one, which is it? Let me know in the comments below, go check out the companion post for the combos and the cheese, and until next time, roll high and stay ridiculous.
