Enervation

A
Damage

Enervation is a Damage spell. Damage spells focus on dealing harm to enemies.

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spell that drains life with necrotic force and
sustains you

Enervation is a Healing spell. Healing spells restore hit points and bring characters back to life.

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as you keep dealing damage
with each action

Enervation is a Action Economy spell. Action Economy spells grant you more choices on future turns.

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.

2024 Rules

Level & School
5th-level necromancy
Casting Time
Action
Range
60 feet
Components
V, S
Duration
Concentration, 1 minute
Classes
Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard
Source
Arcana Unleashed

A tendril of inky darkness reaches out from you to drain life from a creature you can see within range.

The target makes a Dexterity saving throw. On a failed save, the target takes 6d8 Necrotic damage. On each of your subsequent turns, you can take a Bonus Action to deal 2d8 Necrotic damage to the target automatically. The spell ends if the target is ever outside the spell's range or it has Total Cover from you.

On a successful save, the target takes half the initial damage only, and the spell ends.

Whenever this spell deals damage to a target, you regain Hit Points equal to half the amount of Necrotic damage dealt.

Using a Higher-Level Spell Slot. The initial damage increases by 1d8 for each spell slot level above 5.

2014 Rules

Level & School
5th-level necromancy
Casting Time
Action
Range
60 feet
Components
V, S
Duration
Concentration, 1 minute
Classes
Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard
Source
Xanathar's Guide to Everything

A tendril of inky darkness reaches out from you, touching a creature you can see within range to drain life from it. The target must make a Dexterity saving throw. On a successful save, the target takes 2d8 necrotic damage, and the spell ends. On a failed save, the target takes 4d8 necrotic damage, and until the spell ends, you can use your action on each of your turns to automatically deal 4d8 necrotic damage to the target. The spell ends if you use your action to do anything else, if the target is ever outside the spell's range, or if the target has total cover from you.

Whenever the spell deals damage to a target, you regain hit points equal to half the amount of necrotic damage the target takes.

Using a Higher-Level Spell Slot. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 6th level or higher, the damage increases by 1d8 for each slot level above 5th.

Enervation 5.5e 2024 vs. 5e 2014 edition differences

The initial failed-save damage rises from 4d8 to 6d8, while recurring damage drops from 4d8 to 2d8 and changes from an Action to a Bonus Action. A successful save now deals half the initial damage. Upcasting increases only the initial damage, not the recurring damage.

How popular is Enervation in 5e?

Enervation is the #53 most popular level 5 spell (of 71) and the #13 most picked level 5 Warlock spell (of 18).

Among level 5 spells, Enervation ranks just below Control Winds and just above Hallow in popularity.

Read about how this popularity data is calculated and see Enervation visualized with all 5e spells.

Spells similar to Enervation