[RPG] Can you use Feeblemind to Awaken more beasts in order to use them as sidekicks

ability-scoresdnd-5esidekickspells

Awaken only works on beasts with 4 INT or lower. Feeble lowers INT to 1 for 30 days. Could I use this to broaden the range of animals I could awaken?

I want to introduce a talking Ape as a sidekick into a game RAW for the party lawyers.

Best Answer

Yes, it is possible.

The problem is Feeblemind killing the target beast, but it is easily overcome.

Simple way would be to cast Death Ward on target animal. It's a non-concentration 4th level Cleric/Paladin spell, with duration of 8 hours, so it should be easy enough to arrange at the point you have Feeblemind and Awaken available. That will make it drop to 1 hit point when any damage would drop it to 0 hit points, so casting Feeblemind is now not deadly.

If you can't arrange Death Ward, a more messy alternative is to give temporary hitpoints, for which Enhance Ability for Bear's Endurance, max 12 temp hit points (2d6, but it's a 2nd level spell so you can easily try several times) might be best as it is free to cast yet can give enough HP to make survival likely. But better prepare to lose a few beast specimens before one survives, if you go this route.

Once the target survives the Feeblemind, direct reading of Awaken says it is a valid target:

The target must have either no Intelligence score or an Intelligence of 3 or less.

vs Feeblemind instant effect:

  • On a failed save, the creature's Intelligence and Charisma scores become 1

Then there is the remaining issue of Feeblemind staying in effect. Feeblemind is a reversible state, which is probably not overriden by Awaken. But this is irrelevant, Feeblemind effect needs to be removed anyway. Now the question is, what is the beast's INT after this? If an originally INT 3 beast is awakened, feebleminded and dispelled, its INT would clearly be 10. If order is Feeblemind, Awaken, dispel, there isn't any reason I could find for the order to matter, final INT would still be 10. So, same would apply if the original INT was >3.

Feeblemind should of course be removed before its next saving throw (every 30 days) to avoid the need to even consider what would happen, if that save fails. I'll asume this is not a a challenge for characters able to cast Awaken and Feeblemind.


The only caveat really is, that Feeblemind is reversible, so the original INT score must still be in existence, and a DM would be within their right to rule that this original score (in the creature's stat block) is what Awaken looks at. But this is going beyond what is actually written in the rules, and would be very strange, since everywhere else "ability score" means "current ability score" without needing to be explicit about it being "current".