[RPG] Is a player character required to use its Extra Attack when Charmed using Crown of Madness

dnd-5espells

We were recently playing a campaign, where one of the hostiles used Crown of Madness against our Barbarian. The spell succeeded, and as we were standing beside him we got attacked. So far so good, but then the DM argued, that because the Barbarian can do an Extra Attack he is obliged to use it, and attack until possible, and had to hit us again. Ouch.

We argued, that from our understanding based on the rules "a melee attack" only refers to one attack, while the DM argued that "a melee attack" means the whole Attack action, which would include the Extra Attack as well.

The rules for the spell state the following:

The charmed target must use its action before moving on each of its turns to make a melee attack against a creature other than itself that you mentally choose.

Fortunately we did survive both blows by our Barbarian, and managed to escape, but we're still wondering whether the DM's ruling was appropriate based on the rules or not.

Best Answer

No, you only make one attack. When you can use Extra Attack is very specific:

Extra Attack

Beginning at 5th level, you can attack twice, instead of once, whenever you take the Attack action on your turn.

The spell does not say that you "Take the Attack action on your turn", which means you can't trigger Extra Attack. (If they meant that, it would have mentioned that you take the Attack action. The designers have been quite explicit about the difference between "The Attack action" and "an attack" throughout the book. See also this question: What does upper-case-A-Attack action vs. lower-case-a-attack mean?)

Forcing someone to use all their attacks on this spell makes it very powerful; if your DM wants to continue ruling that Crown of Madness forces someone to make all their attacks then I would suggest your party members all pick it up as well; most (stronger) monsters can make 2 or more attacks, so the spell will work in your favor as well.