Find Steed
- Casting Time
- 10 Minutes
- Range
- 30 Feet
- Duration
- instantaneous
- Components
- V
- S
- Class
- Paladin
Spell Description
You summon a spirit that assumes the form of an unusually intelligent, strong, and loyal steed, creating a long-lasting bond with it. Appearing in an unoccupied space within range, the steed takes on a form that you choose: a warhorse, a pony, a camel, an elk, or a mastiff. (Your GM might allow other animals to be summoned as steeds.) The steed has the statistics of the chosen form, though it is a celestial, fey, or fiend (your choice) instead of its normal type. Additionally, if your steed has an Intelligence of 5 or less, its Intelligence becomes 6, and it gains the ability to understand one language of your choice that you speak.
Your steed serves you as a mount, both in combat and out, and you have an instinctive bond with it that allows you to fight as a seamless unit. While mounted on your steed, you can make any spell you cast that targets only you also target your steed.
When the steed drops to 0 hit points, it disappears, leaving behind no physical form. You can also dismiss your steed at any time as an action, causing it to disappear. In either case, casting this spell again summons the same steed, restored to its hit point maximum.
While your steed is within 1 mile of you, you can communicate with each other telepathically.
You can’t have more than one steed bonded by this spell at a time. As an action, you can release the steed from its bond at any time, causing it to disappear.
Is Find Steed Good?
Overall Rating: Blue. This means that find steed is a great spell and you should strongly consider this spell for your character.
Overall Notes: Find steed is quite an interesting spell. It's similar to find familiar in the sense that you can summon an animal companion with a 10-minute spell that lasts indefinitely (until it is killed or dispelled). Instead of a small creature like find familiar, find steed allows you to summon a rideable companion. Now, riding a mount into combat can be a bit tricky to understand because the rules are confusing at best. Essentially, you can either choose to control your mount (tell it where to go on your turn) or you can let it act independently. If you control the mount, it acts on the same initiative as you and can only Dash, Disengage, or Dodge on its turn. If you let it act independently, it acts on its own initiative and can use the full range of its actions. Because your summoned steed has an Intelligence of 6, it can act independently, unlike other rideable beasts. Jeremy Crawford suggests in his Sage Advice podcast to let players choose each round if the mount will be acting independently or being controlled. While your mount acting independently may allow for better action economy and more damage, it can certainly end with you going somewhere you don't want to because your mount has been spooked in combat.