Introduction
Bard spells borrow a lot from the Wizard and a few options from the Cleric, but with a distinct focus on support spells, illusions, and enchantments. Very few of the Bard’s combat spells deal damage, instead focusing on status effects.
While the Bard does get all of the healing options available to Clerics and Druids, they do get crucial options, including Cure Wounds, Healing Word, Restoration, and even Raise Dead. While they don’t Heal at high levels, a Bard is still capable of replacing a Cleric in most campaigns.
Table of Contents
Disclaimer
RPGBOT uses the color coding scheme which has become common among Pathfinder build handbooks, which is simple to understand and easy to read at a glance.
- : Bad, useless options, or options which are extremely situational. Nearly never useful.
- : OK options, or useful options that only apply in rare circumstances. Useful sometimes.
- : Good options. Useful often.
- : Fantastic options, often essential to the function of your character. Useful very frequently.
We will not include 3rd-party content, including content from DMs Guild, in handbooks for official content because we can’t assume that your game will allow 3rd-party content or homebrew. We also won’t cover Unearthed Arcana content because it’s not finalized, and we can’t guarantee that it will be available to you in your games.
The advice offered below is based on the current State of the 2024 DnD Character Optimization Meta as of when the article was last updated. Keep in mind that the state of the meta periodically changes as new source materials are released, and the article will be updated accordingly as time allows. Also be sure to check for errata periodically.
Bard Spells by Level
Bard Cantrips
- (PHB): At very low levels, this can be a good defensive option. As you gain levels and get more spell slots, you’ll want to reserve your Concentration for more impactful spells.
- (PHB): An amusing distraction, but you can usually accomplish the same thing using Mage Hand and a candle or torch.
- (PHB): High risk, high reward. This is great for dealing with brief social interactions with NPCs that you’ll never see again or that have no way to cause trouble for you, or who you might end up attacking anyway for whatever reason. There’s no Verbal component, so you can safely use this while hidden.
- (PHB): Disposable magic light is fantastic, but you’ll do fine with torches if you don’t have room for the Cantrip.
- (PHB): The ability to move objects at a safe distance is profoundly useful. Use it to pull levers, open doors, sort your laundry, and all manner of other important but potentially hazardous tasks where you wouldn’t want to risk your own hands.
- (PHB): Too situational. Short of Rust Monsters and a few oozes, nearly nothing in 5e deals damage to your equipment. If you’re playing Spelljammer, this is essential, but otherwise you can skip it.
- (PHB): Situational. Use this to send messages without revealing your position.
- : (PHB): Room for plenty of creative, deceptive uses. The 5-foot cube is easily enough to create something to hide behind, provided that your enemies don’t see you create the illusion.
- (PHB): Whenever you want to do something small and magical that’s not covered by another spell, it’s usually covered by prestidigitation. This spell is exceptionally versatile. For suggestions on how to use Prestidigitation to its fullest, see our Practical Guide to Prestidigitation.
- (PHB): With True Strike available, the only benefit to Starry Wisp is that it can prevent the target from becoming Invisible. But that is not useful enough to justify picking this as a Cantrip since you get to prepare so few.
- (EEPC / PHB): Most Bards have no business being in a position to use this, but martial Bards like College of Swords and College of Valor may find this an effective option against crowds in melee.
- (PHB): Your go-to attack Cantrip. A crossbow with True Strike will do more damage and have better range than most damaging Cantrips until their damage has scaled at least once, and the ones which out-scale True Strike aren’t on the Bard’s spell list. If you increase your spellcasting modifier to +4 at level 4, a crossbow with True Strike will deal more damage (average 12) than d10-based Cantrips like Fire Bolt (average 11), and d8-based Cantrips like Starry Wisp simply can’t compete.
- (PHB): Easily the most iconic Bard spell, Vicious Mockery is unique, flavorful, and mechanically fantastic. The damage is relatively small, but the debuff is absolutely worth the poor damage.
Level 1 Bard spells
- (PHB): Arguably easier than proficiency in Animal Handling, but it will become obsolete once beasts disappear around CR 10.
-
(PHB): While
the debuff is good, Bane is often difficult to justify. Against crowds,
enemies will die too quickly to justify debuffing them. Against bigger
enemies, it makes more sense to hit them with something more debilitating.
However, Bane isn’t without merit. Since it targets Charisma saves, many enemies that are resistant to more common Constitution or Wisdom saves still have poor Charisma saves. It’s also especially useful against enemies with Legendary Resistance because it puts the DM into a no-win situation: do they burn a Legendary Resistance one a level 1 spell, or do they accept the debuff which will make them more vulnerable for the rest of the fight?
-
(PHB): If you can cast
this on a target outside of combat without them noticing, this can be a
great way to defuse a potentially hostile situation. However, the spell has
some complications.
Charm Person has no visual effect like a ball of fire, so there’s no visual indication that the spell succeeded or failed. The target doesn’t know that they’ve been targeted by the spell if they succeed on the saving throw, but you don’t know if they succeeded or failed unless your DM decides to tell you (and they are under no obligation to do so). So generally your best bet is to cast this once or twice and hope for the best before presenting yourself to your target.
- (PHB): The effect is not powerful enough and the duration is not long enough to justify the spell slot.
- PHB: Enough effects to be useful in many situations, but it’s a single-target
spell and the effects only last one turn, so at low levels it’s hard to
justify. Consider picking this up a few levels into your career once you
have the abilty to upcast it to affect multiple targets.
The best uses of Command typically require support from your allies. Approach and Flee are great if you have melee allies who can make Opportunity Attacks when the target moves. Drop is great if someone in your party can quickly pick up the dropped item, preventing weapon-using enemies from arming themselves again. Grovel can cause flying enemies to fall. Halt simply trades actions, but robbing your target of a turn is certainly impactful. At high levels, spending an Action and a level 1 spell slot to prevent a powerful foe from acting can easily win a fight.
- (PHB): Cast this as a ritual. Unfortunately it’s a self-targeting spell so your communication will be one-way unless whatever you’re talking to also has a solution.
-
(PHB): Significantly more
healing than Healing Word, but the action economy is worse in exchange. Save
this for when you need a lot of hit points in a hurry. Ideally, you’ll heal
an ally from 0 hp (or at least close to it) to full or nearly full hp.
As a rule, healing in combat is a bad choice unless someone is unconscious or you can heal them enough to keep them conscious for multiple turns. If you heal an ally and they immediately take damage roughly equal to what you healed, you have spent an Action and a spell slot to negate an Action from an enemy that likely won’t need to track spell slots for more than a few rounds. If all that you’re doing is offsetting damage, you’re in an attrition fight. Players always lose attrition fights, even when they win the fight.
- (PHB): Essential. If you’re not concentrating on anything else, it’s often a good idea to cast this as a ritual and walk around with it.
- (PHB): Learning a single spell is cheaper than proficiency in a Disguise Kit. Buying a scroll is even cheaper.
- (PHB): Surprisingly good crowd control. This only requires Verbal components, so you can use it while grappled to force the creature grappling you to run away. The damage isn’t spectacular, but honestly you don’t need it to be. The forced movement will provoke Opportunity Attacks, so you can get a lot of additional damage output by using against enemies who are in melee with your allies.
- (AI): If your DM allows you to trade magic items, this might be incredibly useful. However, your DM might also find this incredibly annoying and punish you for using it by having angry traders track you down after an unfair trade. Discuss this spell with your DM before you consider preparing it.
- (EEPC / XGtE): Not nearly enough damage, and being prone isn’t enough of a problem in 5e. The difficult terrain effect is the real draw. It only works on “loose earth or stone”, but that covers nearly anything you’ll stand on except wood, so it’s an easy way to create difficult terrain. Unfortunately, it also affects you, so be careful not to trap yourself among enemies.
- (PHB): The lowest-level option to deal with invisible creatures, and Advantage on attacks against creatures which fail their save means that this remains a powerful support option well into high levels, especially against big bulky enemies with high AC but poor Dexterity saves. Hopefully you won’t run into any invisible creatures at 1st level, but but it’s important to have some way to deal with invisibility just in case.
- (PHB): Someone in the party needs to have this at all times, and you’re someone. Falling damage is a silly, embarrassing way to die.
- (PHB): More important than Cure Wounds, especially at low levels. As a bonus action you can heal an unconscious ally enough to get them back into the fight, and you still have your action for Vicious Mockery.
-
(PHB): At low levels where
your tank might only have 12 hp and enemies are doing something like 5-8
damage per turn, this is a big enough buff to win a fight for you. At higher
levels it will be less appealing due to the Concentration requirement,
unfortunately.
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. All that you need to make Heroism more effective than Cure Wounds is to know who is going to take damage for the next several rounds. Considering that most parties have one or two characters drawing the vast majority of attacks, that’s usually easy to figure out. Padding that character’s hit points will allow them to keep fighting without repeating spending spell slots to heal them from 0.
- (PHB): Only situationally useful. Even if you encounter a magic item, this typically isn’t necessary because you can usually identify a magic item by spending a Short Rest in contact with it. Some (but not all) cursed magic items can be identified using the Identify spell.
- (PHB): A fun party trick, but 10 gp is expensive if you want to use this often.
- (PHB): A helpful buff for highly mobile characters, and with an hour-long duration it can be a great use of low-level spell slots once your level 1 spells start lagging in combat.
- (PHB): While not nearly so powerful as Major Image, if you just want an object or a visual effect, Silent Image does the job just as well. Throw up a fake wall, door, or portcullis to slow pursuers. Create a piece of furniture, then hide inside it and stab people when they try to open it. Illusions are limited more by your creativity (and your DM’s willingness to play along) than by the spell’s text.
- (SCoC): Extremely powerful, but also very complicated. See our blog post on Silvery Barbs for details on the numerous abuse cases which the spell allows.
- (PHB): Making your targets Incapacitated will rob them of most of their turn and break Concentration. You may get lucky and have targets fall asleep after the second save, especially if you can debuff their save with Mind Sliver or some other effect. This is an incredibly powerful save-or-suck spell that will work for your whole career and doesn’t need to be upcast. Sure, the AOE is tiny, but if this were a single-target spell it would still be really good.
- (PHB): Situational, but sometimes the only witnesses are wild animals and you just need a clue from your local family of squirrels.
- (PHB): A great low-level save or suck, but generally you want to use this on a creature then leave it alone until you’ve dealt with anything else in the encounter. The best comparison at this level is to Sleep. Sleep is an AOE (though a small one), and if your target fails the second save, they fall Unconscious. Sleep will be more impactful, but it’s also easier to remove.
- (PHB): With the exception of Gust, this is one of your very few options for pushing enemies away from you. It’s especially appealing if you can push an enemy into an area control effect, but otherwise it’s not a good go-to option for damage output in combat.
- (PHB): This has very limited utility in combat or in dangerous situations, but that doesn’t mean that it has none. With a 1-hour duration you can get a lot done with a single casting. Interacting with items can mean opening doors and chests, carrying items, using potions on allies, and other things which you might not have time or patience to do. 2 Strength isn’t enough to carry anything heavy or to break down a door, but it’s often enough to trigger traps.
Level 2 Bard spells
- PHB: With an 8-hour duration and three targets, this is a staple buff that’s
worth casting literally every day. Keep in mind that this actually increases
the targets’ hit point maximum, so temporary hit points can be added, too.
Aid’s casting time allows it to be used in combat, which is unusual but offers an interesting option. With three targets and a 30-foot range, you can cast it to both buff and heal your allies during combat. Targets’ current hit points and hit point maximum both increase, so allies at 0 hit points are healed in addition to having their hit point maximum raised, thereby allowing Aid to serve a similar function to Mass Healing Word.
However, since spells don’t stack with themselves, it’s hard to repeat this trick. You’ll need to cast Aid again using higher-level spell slots, which can get expensive quickly, so Mass Healing Word is probably better if Aid is already running and if Mass Healing Word is an option for your party.
- (PHB): Situational and less reliable than similar spells like Sending, but it’s also a spell level lower than Sending and it’s a Ritual. If you know that your recipient is going to be wherever you send your message, this works fine. Unfortunately, the recipient doesn’t get to respond.
- (PHB): Blindness is crippling, especially for enemies who fight at range like archers and spellcasters. It’s also helpful against melee enemies, but Constitution saves tend to be high, so it’s often best to use this on enemies which are more physically frail. Deafness is a mild annoyance.
- (SCoC): A great way to cover skill proficiencies that your party doesn’t have, Borrowed Knowledge lasts an hour and doesn’t require Concentration, so you can combine it with Enhance Ability to become instantly excellent at any skill. Enhance Ability is more broadly useful because you can cast it on other allies to support them when their best skills come into play, but when there’s a gap in your party’s skillset, you can use this to come to the rescue.
-
(PHB): Two situational but
frequently useful effects. First, you can use this to temporarily suppress
effects which charm or frighten your allies. Both effects are common, and
many enemies can apply them to your whole party. Charm effects often include
mind control effects, and suppressing them for a minute on a willing ally
can easily buy you enough time to deal with whatever is trying to mind
control your friends. Fear effects are often area effects, such as a
dragon’s Frightful Presence, so suppressing them for a minute can bring
whichever portions of your party failed their saves back into the fray.
Second, you can use this to make enemies not be hostile toward you and your allies for one minute. That will at least pause most encounters for the spell’s duration, which is enough time to either heal and buff the party or escape. I wouldn’t try to negotiate a truce in one minute, especially since the targets can go right back to hostile the moment that the spell ends. Note that this effect intentionally uses the “Hostile/Indifferent/Friendly” disposition scale described in the Dungeon Master’s Guide.
-
(PHB): 4d4 damage (average
10) isn’t great, and a 5-foot cloud is not a big AOE, but this applies the
damage without a save, and you can apply it repeatedly over the spell’s
duration. Since you can move this as an Action, you can cast this on your
first turn and use it every turn for an entire fight, dealing comparable
single-target damage to Magic Missile.
If you can force enemies into the cloud repeatedly, you can abuse it using many of the same tactics as Spirit Guadians. But, if you can’t manage that, 10 guaranteed damage and blocking one square is not worth the spell slot and Concentration. Allies who can grapple, the Push Weapon Mastery, and other forced movement effects will do a lot to make this effective. Holding an enemy in place will guarantee damage every round, but dragging the enemy out and then back in will also trigger the damage, multiplying your damage output depending on how many times your party can do this.
The rules for area effects notably don’t require area effects to “snap” to the grid, so you can place Cloud of Daggers in between squares to affect two squares. An effect simply needs to cover 50% or more of a square to affect it, so a single 5-foot cube can affect two adjacent squares. I always play with effects snapping to grids, but RAW this is allowed.
- (PHB): “The charmed target must use its Action before moving on each of its turns to make a melee attack”. Unless your enemies are dumb enough to stand next to their ally while they’re clearly under the effects of a harmful spell, you’re going to get maybe one attack out of this.
- (PHB): Situational, but a clever player can use this to gather crucial information from enemies unwilling to share it. However, the checks to continue focusing on a single creature’s thoughts are Intelligence checks and bards rarely have enough Intelligence to succeed reliably at opposed Intelligence checks. If you can, have an ally cast buffs like Guidance or Enhance Ability (Intelligence) on you to give yourself an edge.
- (PHB): Fantastic and versatile. Using this to buff Charisma for your party’s Face will make any social situation go a lot better.
- (PHB): A useful option both as a buff for melee allies and as a utility option, though I would rarely try using this to shrink enemies. You can use this on a small ally to make them small enough to smuggle in a pocket, or you can use this on an ally to give them an edge against enemies that rely on grappling. The bonus damage for being enlarged is nice, but not really worth the spell slot unless the target is making a huge number of weapon attacks like a high-level fighter.
- (PHB): Too situational, too limited, and the duration is too short. The best usage I can think of for this is to distract a bunch of creatures while your allies move past them or move into place to ambush them. But in most cases where you’re resorting to violence you’ll have better results with a different spell like Calm Emotions. In situations where you need to move past people, cast Invisibility.
- (AI): Another hilarious entry from Acquisitions Incorporated with dubious use in a typical game. The intent of having mechanics in place for social interactions is to detach your real-world social skills from your character’s social skills. If you say something foolish in real life, your DM should generally be kind enough to filter that through your character into something that would make sense for them to say. But if they don’t, this is a perfectly fine way to clean up a mistake. Keep in mind that it only resets six seconds of conversation, so a short sentence is all that you can cover. You can’t spend an hour berating someone than say “Gift of Gab” and have everything forgotten.
- (PHB): Situational by design, but against nearly any humanoid in metal armor, this spell is a death sentence. The damage will be slow, but Disadvantage on attack rolls and Ability Checks makes martial creatures (the ones typically in metal armor) basically useless. Upcasting the spell is surprisingly efficient since the additional damage applies every round, so if you’re fortunate enough to encounter a suitable enemy, use this to its fullest. It also monopolizes your Bonus Action, which can be hard for the Bard since you need your Bonus Action for Bardic Inspiration.
-
(PHB): On/off button for
Humanoids. Humanoids are a tiny portion of DnD’s roster of enemies, so this
spell is situational by design. Even some creatures which have historically
been common Humanoid antagonists like Hoblins and Sahuagin have changed
creature type in the 2024 rules, though there are more NPC stat blocks than
in the 2014 rules, which might keep Humanoids a relevant threat in some
campaigns.
In encounters with multiple foes, you can up-cast Hold Person to paralyze multiple targets, so this can still handle groups of enemies when AOE damage spells aren’t a good idea for whatever reason. Paralysis is a serious status condition, granting Advantage on attacks against the targets and guaranteeing Critical Hits for attacks made within 5 feet of the target. Send anyone with a weapon into melee to finish off the targets before they manage to succeed on a follow-up save to remove the condition.
However, remember that targets get an additional save at the end of each round, so you can’t predict how long this will stay in effect. If you up-cast this to affect multiple targets, you may reach a point where so few of them are still paralyzed that maintaining Concentration may not be worthwhile.
-
(PHB): An essential
scouting and infiltration tool, and as you get higher-level spell slots you
can affect more of your party.
The conditions which break the Invisibility spell are surprisingly narrow. While attacks and spells include most of the offensive things which a player does, those two things don’t include other offensive options like breath weapons, including those provided by spells like Dragon’s Breath, polymorph effects, or the Dragonborn’s breath weapon.
- (SCoC): Bards don’t get Misty Step, and Kinetic Jaunt is a great way to remove yourself from melee. However, it requires Concentration and doesn’t remove you from grapples, so it’s not a universally effective solution, especially with the Bard’s limited number of spells known. It may be more effective to use offensive spells like to inhibit whatever is grappling you or to use Invisibility to avoid Opportunity Attacks.
- (PHB): The primary reason to have proficiency with Thieves’ Tools is to handle locks. Knock doesn’t require a check. It just works. Make aggressive eye contact with your party’s Rogue while you cast this just to rub it in.
- (PHB): Situational, but a situation that comes up often. If you don’t have a Cleric or Druid in the party, you may be the only one with access to this spell, so you’ll want to take it at some point.
- (PHB): Too situational.
- (PHB): Too situational, and too easy to counter. Anyone with any knowledge of magic that’s trying to hide something will wrap it in lead.
-
(PHB): Very situational,
but it’s cast as a Ritual, so it’s easy to keep handy. This is more useful
if you have a permanent base, but you can also place the effect on portable
objects (like a piece of paper) in order to perform various shenanigans.
Honestly, the most fun part of this spell is coming up with silly ways to
abuse it.
For example: if you can cast Thaumaturgy somehow, Magic Mouth still recites the message in the volume at which you originally spoke so you can turn a piece of paper into an extremely unpleasant (though harmless) surprise.
-
(PHB): A great defensive
option, and it doesn’t require Concentration so you can easily use it
alongside other great options like Fly.
It’s easy to compare this to Blur since they’re the same level and fill the same niche. Blur applies Disadvantage, but Disadvantage is only useful if your AC is high enough that attackers have a reasonable chance to miss their attacks. When enemies’ attack bonuses have long outstripped the AC provided by Mage Armor and Shield, Mirror Image remains useful. However, since its usefulness diminishes quickly, it works best against enemies making small numbers of attacks with high damage. Also, the 1-minute duration can be challenging when it’s an Action to cast.
- (FToD): Amusing, but unpredictable and unreliable. Since the effect and the save change every round, you can’t choose the targets’ weak saves, and even if targets do fail their save they might still be able to fight unhindered. Targets do need to save every round (unless you roll the molasses option), but the effects simply aren’t powerful enough.
-
(PHB): Don’t cast this
spell for the damage (though 20d8 single-target damage is really good for a
level 2 spell); cast this to incapacitate the target somehow. For example:
Create an illusion of the floor beneath the target sprouting teeth, rising
up around the creature, and eating it like a venus fly trap. The creature
“treats the phantasm as if it were real”, and, unless they know to use
Intelligence (Investigation) to disbelieve the illusion, they’ll spend 10
rounds struggling against a non-existent trap which is slowly killing them.
An ally might try to convince your target that something is amiss, but that’s time that your enemies are trying to get their act together while you’re hitting them with other spells. The save is Intelligence, and Intelligence saves are consistently the lowest save, especially at low levels where beasts are still a threat.
- (PHB): Only situationally useful, slightly annoying to set up, and when it does work the effects aren’t good enough. The flame doesn’t need to be especially large, so a torch or even a candle will suffice. Drop a torch on the ground, run out of range, and cast the spell. The blinding effect isn’t spectacular because it only lasts on round and it’s on a Constitution save. The smoke cloud option is objectively worse than similar options like Fog Cloud or Darkness, but it doesn’t require Concentration which allows you to more easily combine Pyrotechnics with other powerful spells.
-
(PHB): Easy, reliable
counter to invisibility. No Concentration, no aiming an AOE like Faerie
Fire, and, if you cast this ahead of time, no spending an Action in combat.
The 1-hour duration is great, but expect to refresh this after short rests
if you expect invisibility to be a frequent problem.
The 2024 stealth rules make creatures hidden by giving them the Invisible condition. See Invisibility negates the Invisible condition. Therefore, you can see hidden creatures so long as they don’t have total cover.
- (PHB): The poor man’s fireball. 3d8 damage in a 10-foot radius is enough to hit several targets and deal decent damage. However, the save is Constitution so many creatures will be able to resist easily. Disadvantage for creatures made of inorganic materials is really neat, but how often do you fight a group of animated armors or iron golems?
- (PHB): Verbal components are extremely common in spells, including many that spellcasters frequently use to escape dangerous situations. If you can trap an enemy spellcaster in place (such as by having an ally grapple them) and drop Silence around them, you’ll significantly limit their options. In the 2024 rules, spellcasting enemies will have combat actions that aren’t actually spells and which will ignore Silence, but you’ll still limit some of their best options.
- (EEPC): Only useful as a novelty. Still, it’s hard to resist the ability to insult someone by writing nasty things about them in the sky for everyone to see for miles around.
- (BoMT): Poor damage (though doing force damage is really nice), short range, and the blindness doesn’t last long enough that you can benefit in any way except moving out of melee. This could be useful if you get dragged into melee against you will, but Misty Step handles that situation much better.
-
(PHB): Extremely versatile
and
problematically powerful. You can use this to accomplish a lot of things. This is more effective,
reliable, and immediate than Geas. However, the 8-hour duration requires
Concentration. If you want to use this while adventuring, you’re committing
a significant resource for a full day to get the full duration of the spell.
This spell benefits greatly from your own creativity, so the more thought
you put into its use, the more effective it will be.
25 words is generous, and the limitations on your suggestion are extremely broad. The example use in the spell description shows that you can include multiple, complex instructions. With all that in mind, you can negate basically any enemy that isn’t immune to the Charmed condition.
Strangely, Suggestion doesn’t state that the target knows that they were charmed, so much like a “Jedi Mind Trick”, the target will carry out the specified action as though it made sense to do so even if they’ll regret it later.
- (EEPC): Being deafened is annoying but usually not impactful. The big draw here is the difficult terrain to deter melee enemies and Disadvantage to deter ranged attackers. This competes conceptually with Blur since both options impose Disadvantage, but there are some trade-offs. Blur only lasts 1 minute, but the Disadvantage applies to all attacks rather than just ranged attacks. Warding Wind lasts 10 minutes and makes it hard for enemies to move near you, potentially keeping them from reaching you in melee. I’m not sure which spell is better, but given that Warding Wind lasts longer and can handle effects that normally require Gust of Wind, I think Warding Wind may be slightly better.
- (PHB): Too situational to justify on a class can’t change its prepared spells on a daily basis.
Level 3 Bard spells
- (BoMT): Since your target can only attack creatures within its reach when you cast the spell, this is only situationally useful. There’s some functional overlap with Crown of Madness, too. The tiny amount of damage isn’t enough to be impactful, so don’t let that fool you into thinking this is an easy go-to spell. The scaling is terrible, too, so don’t bother upcasting this.
-
(FRHoF):
Spirit Guardians for Bards and Sorcerers! Cacophonic Shield turns you into a
roving blender, allowing you to define entire encounters with a single
spell. Thunder damage is rarely resisted, but the Constitution save is a
huge limitation, and Deafened is rarely impactful in the 5e rules.
This certainly isn’t as good as Spirit Guardians or Yolande’s Regal Presence, but it’s available to more classes than Spirit Guardians and two levels lower than Yolande’s Regal Presence, so you can lean into Spirit Guardians tactics much sooner.
- (PHB): The effects are versatile enough that you can easily bring this into play in a variety of situations, and the scaling mechanism works well enough that this remains a viable option for higher-level spell slots. Use the third option against big tanky enemies with poor Wisdom, or use the first option against enemies that like to grapple. If you’re ever uncertain, use the third option. Robbing a creature of their turn on a failed saving throw is debilitating, and can take creatures almost completely out of a fight.
- (XGtE): A Short Rest is typically one hour. In most campaigns, that will be fine most of the time unless the DM is deliberately creating a time crunch which prevents resting or otherwise sitting about wasting time. In those cases you might be able to squeeze in a Catnap, but more than likely the 10-minute duration will still be problematic. If danger is the driving concern, cast Rope Trick instead and spend an hour in a pocket dimension.
- (PHB): With a 1-mile range and the ability to place the sensor in a place you can’t see, this is a fantastic way to safely scout dangerous places. If you have enough time to sit around and cast the spell repeatedly you can scout whole structures from the outside by gradually learning about more interior locations through previous castings.
- (PHB): Every party needs someone who can cast Dispel Magic. It’s simply too important to forgo.
- (XGtE): Astoundingly few enemies have good Intelligence saves, especially big, scary melee monsters. Throw this on something tanky and horrifying that’s there to protect squishy enemies from you and your friends, and watch it freak out and kill its buddies for you. The duration is only a minute, and obviously this only works in an encounter with multiple enemies, but that doesn’t make the spell less awesome.
-
(AI): A fantastic
non-lethal option for handling single targets, but it has some limitations.
The target needs to be able to understand you, so you likely need to share a
language. The spell requires Concentration, so you don’t want to maintain
this during combat if you can avoid it. And of course, you don’t want to try
casting this during combat.
If you can isolate a single enemy outside of combat, you may be able to ply them for information or send them on errands which will save you trouble later. Tragically, the spell only lasts an hour so the effects end just as you’re getting really attached to your new best friend, and the targets know that you charmed them. You may be able to cast this repeatedly or you may be able to negotiate the situation peacefully even after the spell ends, but many people don’t take kindly to being charmed.
You can also compare this to Suggestion. In the 2024 rules, Suggestion is unrestricted to the point that I use the 2014 version in my own game, but Suggestion doesn’t let you change the commands part-way through the spell. 2024 Suggestion is a better spell than Fast Friends, but Fast Friends is still decent.
- (PHB): A great way to disable groups of opponents, but Fear resistance immunity an immunity are common, and the cone AOE can put you dangerously close to your enemies. This is especially effective against humanoid enemies sinces it forces them to drop what they’re holding, including things like weapons and spellcasting foci.
- (PHB): Very situational.
- (PHB): Depending on how your DM handles it, this is either a situationally useful defensive measure or a reality-bending way to break the game from the comfort of your own home. See our Practical Guide to Glyph of Warding.
-
(PHB): I often say that
spellcaster’s spells early in a fight should dictate the outcome of the
fight, and Hypnotic Pattern is a great example of such a spell. Take a group
of creatures out of a fight for a full minute on only one save. Targets
don’t get another save, and the effect doesn’t end until the spell does or
someone breaks targets out of the effect.
This means that you can focus on enemies which pass the initial save, then gradually eliminate the remaining targets one at a time. This doesn’t scale with spell level, but it really doesn’t need to. A 30-foot cube is enough to hit several creatures, and so long as your Spell Save DC is decent you’ll do fine. Even if enemies spend an Action to break their allies out of the spell, you’ve spent one Action to incapacitate them and they’re spending more than that just to fix it without actually harming you or your allies.
- (TCoE): Technically situational, but an absolutely spectacular defense against enemies which rely on spells or common effects like charm and fear effects. Unlike racial traits like the Gnome’s Cunning or the Satyr and Yuan-Ti Pureblood’s Magic Resistance, this applies to all Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma saving throws, providing broad and effective protection against many of the most dangerous save-or-suck effects in the game. You also get resistance to psychic damage, which is nice if you’re fighting mind flayers, aboleths, or bards who enjoy Vicious Mockery. With a 1-hour duration, the Concentration requirement can be problematic, but it also means that you can carry this through multiple encounters at low cost, so in situations where you need this it’s not going to eat all of your spell slots.
-
(PHB): With an 8-hour
duration and the ability to cast it as a Ritual, Leomund’s Tiny Hut is
useful both as an option for resting, and as a surprising utility and combat
option. The hemisphere (the effect is a hemisphere, but the flavor text
confusingly describes it as a done) which it creates is impenetrable and
impassable like a wall of force, except for creatures which are inside the
sphere when you cast the spell (your party, usually). Since it’s opaque,
most low-level teleport effects like Misty step can’t be used to get inside
it. Your allies can use it for cover, then dart in and out to attack or cast
spells. You as the caster are stuck inside the hut because the spell ends if
you leave, but that doesn’t stop you from summoning something to go fight on
your behalf.
Note that spells of level 4 and above pass through the hut, so enemy spellcasters may be able to drop Fireballs and other nastiness into your hut. If high-level spellcasters are a threat, you’ll still need to set a watch while resting.
- (PHB): Fantastically versatile, and creatures don’t make a saving throw. Instead, they need to know to make an Intelligence (Investigation) check, or they need to physically interact with the illusion. Even then, you can buy yourself a great deal of time while the target tries to figure out your illusion.
- PHB: You never want to need this. It heals exactly as much as standard Healing Word at a much higher cost, but the ability to heal multiple targets means that you can bring multiple allies back into the fight and you still have your Action that turn. Also, the upcasting is terrible.
- (AI): This makes the Inspiring Leader somewhat obsolete. Inspiring Leader will provide considerably more temporary hit points, but this doesn’t require a feat and takes one tenth the time.
- (PHB): Good, but not totally essential. Divination spells include things like See Invisibility, so if you or your party relies on invisibility of any kind this protects from several magical countermeasures to both stealth and invisibility. However, most enemies aren’t spellcasters and won’t have access to those divination options, so you can’t justify casting this every day. The spell also has an expensive material component specifically to deter you from casting this all the time. Still, with an 8-hour duration, if you need this spell it’s going to do exactly what you need it to do.
-
(PHB): Situational.
Outside of normal adventuring activities, the ability to enrich land to
double crop yields is very useful. But DnD is a game primarily about
adventuring, and the option to make an area of plants overgrown is the more
important option for most adventurers. In most cases, Entangle will work
fine if you just need to slow your enemies down, but Plant Growth doesn’t
expire, so those plants remain difficult to walk through until someone
clears the plants (which may requires hours of chopping and/or burning). The
spell also doesn’t specify that the plants grow along the ground or
surfaces, so RAW it can create a sphere of plants, creating super-difficult
terrain extending 100 feet into the air, potentially engulfing flying
enemies.
The math on Plant Growth’s speed reduction is impressive. Since most creatures have a speed of around 30 feet, moving at 1/4 speed means that they can move one 5-foot square and be left with 10 feet of movement that won’t get them anywhere (unless they dash or something). Jeremy Crawford has clarified that Plant Growth doesn’t create difficult terrain, so it’s possible that difficult terrain would stack with Plant Growth, but I personally think that’s not how it’s intended to work. Plant Growth specifies that “a creature moving through the area must spend 4 feet of movement for every 1 foot” while the difficult terrain rule specifies that “moving 1 foot in difficult terrain costs 2 feet of speed”, and since those two statements conflict I think you’re intended to use whichever effect is greater rather than stacking them or multiplying them or something.
While it’s not discussed in the text of the spell, it seems likely that Plant Growth would also impede vision. If you turn a nicely-tended hedge into a 100-foot-radius hemisphere of super-difficult terrain, there’s clearly enough stuff in the way that seeing through it is difficult. This would necessarily mean that creatures inside the area would likely be concealed to some degree, so don’t expect to drop Plant Growth on an enemy and then spend the next several turns spraying them with cantrips until they fall down.
Plant Growth’s problematic limitation is that it requires plants to be in the area. However, there doesn’t seem to be any restriction on how many or how large these plants must be (just that they must be “normal”, whatever that means), and where there’s lack of clarity there’s room for shenanigans. For example: you might carry around a potted plant and throw it into the area to provide the necessary plant life to support the spell. Plants like mint or clover can fit into a small pot, and when you make them grow you get a pretty and pleasant-smelling field of super-difficult terrain. If your DM scoffs at the idea of 100-foot-tall clover patches, consider carrying a bonsai tree or some other plant which would normally be very tall (though a bonsai might not qualify as “normal” since we don’t know what that word means here).
- (PHB): Not especially glamorous, but messaging over massive distances has a number of uses. Also, due to the wording of the spell, you can use it on creatures that don’t understand your speech and they’ll still understand your meaning, allowing you to use Sending in place of Tongues if you only need to convey brief messages.
-
(PHB): Slow is a great
debuff for martial enemies, but it has to compete with other Wisdom save
options at the same spell level. Compared to Hypnotic Pattern, Slow severely
handicaps targets, but they can still fight back. Hypnotic Pattern’s targets
can’t act at all until they’re released from the effect, but it’s also a
Charm effect which some creatures are immune or resistant to.
The 25% chance to fail casting spells with Somatic components is interesting, but unreliable. If you want to prevent spellcasting, use Silence.
- (PHB): This is a spell of justify on a class with a limited number of spells known. This is a spell of last resort. It is extremely limited, and if the dead creature didn’t like you while it’s alive it’s unlikely to be helpful after you’ve killed it. Your best bet is to use this on an NPC with information that you can’t get otherwise. Cast Gentle Repose on the corpse to keep it intact so that you can hit it with Speak with Dead again 10 days later.
- (PHB): Situational. If you encounter plant creatures, this may allow you to handle them nonviolently, but I don’t think this is useful enough to learn permanently on a class with a limited number of spells known.
- (PHB): While this can rob targets of their Action and Bonus Action if they fail the save, the area is small and easy to escape. Given the choice between the two, I would go for Sleet Storm first.
- (PHB): Language can present a serious barrier. You may not want to pick this up when you first get access to level 3 spells, but consider picking it up later when using alevel 3 spell on a utility option is less daunting. Remember that you can cast this on other people, which is great since you are likely the worst person to cast this on.
Level 4 Bard spells
-
(FRHoF):
Situational by design, and excellent at what it does, but
you should not use this spell every round. The considerations and
interactions here are complicated, and a level 4+ spell slot is a powerful
resource. Strongly consider using Absorb Elements or Shield first, as both
of those spells are considerably less expensive. But Retaliate can cover any
damage source and also does retaliatory damage, so there is definitely a
powerful niche use here.
The primary function of Backlash is to reduce incoming damage. 4d6 + modifier will average to 14 + modifier, likely mitigating 19 damage for full casters. If you’re concentrating on an important spell, reducing incoming damage will dramatically reduce the DC for your Concentration save.
The retaliatory damage is small and allows a Constitution save for half damage, so you should expect to only deal half damage. That’s very minor, but it’s also dealt as a Reaction, and any damage dealt as a Reaction is generally outside of 5e’s mathematicaly expectations, which makes it very powerful. If you just want damage, Hellish Rebuke is likely a better choice, but remember that the primary benefit of Backlash is reducing incoming damage. Retaliatory damage is secondary.
The scaling for Backlash isn’t great. A +5 ability modifier is almost as good as 2 additional spell levels. If you’re going to upcast Backlash, think very carefully about the resource cost to do so compared to what you’re losing if you don’t. If you’re upcasting Backlash to try to save an ongoing spell, would it be less costly to cast the spell again with that same spell slot?
All things considered, I don’t recommend taking Backlash until you’re casting spells of at least level 6. You don’t want to commit your highest-level spell slots to a situational defensive spell when they could be used to eliminate enemies before they could harm you. And, again, try to use Absorb Elements or Shield first.
- (XGtE): A great nonlethal way to deal with enemies. It doesn’t require that the target be able to understand you, but otherwise has the same complications which Charm Person does: the target is only friendly toward you, and when the spell ends they know that they were charmed.
- (PHB): This is technically situational, but if you can get a group of enemies to all run one direction and bunch up against a wall or something, they’re very easy to hit with a big AOE. You can’t run them into something like a Wall of Fire, unfortunately.
- (PHB): I’ve hated Confusion since 3rd edition. It’s unpredictable, unreliable, and makes combat take twice as long as it would normally. It’s great that it’s an AOE, and you might be able to make creatures attack their allies, but there are too many points of failure for it to be a reliable option.
- (PHB): Bards don’t get Misty step, so this and Kinetic Jaunt are you lowest-level teleportation options.
-
(): The damage
isn’t high, but it’s a good damage type and the save debuff is excellent.
Magical darkness will force most enemies to exit the AOE on their turn so
that you can force them back into it to trigger the effect again. But,
unlike most ongoing area damage spells, the sphere moves away from you
gradually, which can make it difficult to keep the spell in the area where
you’re fighting. There’s also no word on what happens when the sphere hits
cover, so it might run right through walls.
: This is something to be done by an NPC, not by a player. A permanent ball of nonsense rolling slowly away from you forever is not something that a player needs. The spell doesn’t end when it moves out of range, but you can drop it up to a mile away and watch it terrorize innocent civilians. Also, how weird is that material component? A string of black pearls from another plane, but somehow it doesn’t have a gp cost.
The sphere notably keeps going forever. As explained in the rules for spell ranges, “If a spell has movable effects, they aren’t restricted by its range unless the spell’s description says otherwise.” You could, in theory, shoot this into space and it would float along like an angry little cloud forever.
- (PHB): A small damage boost for weapon-using Bards. The Reaction to blind attackers is neat, but Constitution saves tend to be high, and you need to take damage and risk losing Concentration to benefit from it. You also can’t upcast it for more damage. If you want to use this, strongly consider learning Conjure Minor Elementals when you get Magical Secrets.
- (PHB): Nice, but situational. If you need to get yourself out of restraints or a grapple, cast Dimension Door.
- (PHB): Invisibility in 5e is really good, and running around for a full minute being almost impossible to target is a huge advantage.
- (PHB): Situational. Unless you specifically need the 24-hour duration and the massive area of effect, Major Image will suffice.
- (PHB): More effective than mundane tracking, but the 1,000-foot range can be a problem if the target is actively fleeing from you. If you’re going to use this, be sure that you’re moving faster than your target.
- (PHB): Despite how slowly it kills the target, this is a great single-target spell and the spell level scaling is absolutely spectacular. Against big burly foes which often have poor mental stats, the save will be hard to pass and the debuff will make their attacks and ability checks much less effective. Because casting Phantasmal Killer increases the damage by a d10 every time it deals damage (rather than just the on the first damage roll like many spells), this remains an effective option well beyond its spell level.
-
(PHB): Fantastic and
versatile, but also very complicated. See our
Practical Guide to Polymorph
for detailed advice on how to get the most out of Polymorph.
There was some ambiguity when the 2024 rules were first published, but errata has updated Polymorph to clarify that the Temporary Hit Points vanish when the spell ends.
- (FToD): Situational by design. The damage is low for a spell of this level, especially for one that’s single-target, but the damage alone isn’t why you’re here. The save is Intelligence, and those tend to be among the lowest saves, even at very high levels, and the target is Incapacitated on a failed save, robbing them of a turn, so despite it being single-target with lackluster damage it’s a powerful tool against single foes. Even better, if you know the target’s name (often easy for named antagonists), you can cast this without line of sight, allowing you to hide behind walls, in areas of magical darkness, or somewhere else safe.
Level 5 Bard spells
-
(FRHoF):
Situational by design, but really good at what it does. Half cover and three
damage resistances is a ton of protection for yourself and your whole party,
which is great on a class that can’t easily change their prepared spells. If
your enemies depend on the covered damage types, this could change the
course of a fight. Cover also provides a bonus to Dexterity saves, making
this especially useful against area effects like breath weapons.
There are two options to end the spell early, but try to avoid needing them. Once the fighting is done, use the healing option to squeeze a little more value out of the spell before the 1-minute duration ends.
-
(PHB): This spell is
complicated, but it can be profoundly effective when it works. It works a
bit like a summon spell, but requires conveniently placed objects for you to
animate. A summon spell is typically both safer and more convenient, but
placing multiple bodies on the battlefield means that you can block space
and hold enemies in place more easily than you could with a single summon.
The difference is size between potential objects is an important decision. Huge creatures are the most efficient usage, but huge objects are often hard to find, and they’re too big to haul around on your own. Small or medium objects will still fill a space, so you may be able to use barrels or crates or something like that. If you’re desperate, you can animate tiny objects like glass vials.
- (PHB): Neat, but extremely situational.
- (PHB): Humanoids stop being common enemies after low levels because high-CR humanoids are typically NPCs with names and backstories and things like that. Even then, the 2024 rules dramatically shrunk the number of humanoids, changing th Still, there’s no better off-switch for a humanoid than Dominate Person. Upcasting the spell increases the duration, allowing you to drag the target through a bunch of fights. However, the creature taking damage allows additional saves, so be sure to keep it out of harm’s way until you can conveniently do away with them at minimal risk to yourself and your allies. This also suffers from the same Disadvantage issue as Dominate Monster (see below).
- (PHB): While this spell on its own can be very powerful, it’s only usable outside of combat, and there are a lot of limitations on its usage. This is a great option for NPCs to mess with players, but it’s rare that a player can employ this effectively against their enemies.
-
(PHB): This spell is
situational by design. It has a 1-minute casting time and Verbal components,
so you’re not going to break this out in combat or while sneaking around in
a dungeon. You’re going to restrain the subject, and stand around chanting
for a full minute and hope that they fail the save. Once that’s done, you
need to give them a suitable command (read the spell description). Generally
you’ll want it to be something that benefits you, but will also take the
target most of the duration to keep them from becoming a problem for you.
Also remember that the base effect of the Charmed condition makes it easier
for you to talk the creature into doing things with Charisma checks, so a
Geased creature may be a useful ally for the duration of the effect even if
the original order isn’t directly related to what you want them to do.
Increasing the spell level extends the duration, but weirdly the damage doesn’t increase. 5d10 is a nice pile of damage, but it doesn’t scale with spell level and at some point the target will get smart enough to wake up, trigger the 5d10 damage, take a short rest, then go about their business. If the damage scaled this would be less of a problem, but damage is so easily repaired in 5e outside of combat that without further penalties Geas is more a tax on hit dice than the magical shackles it’s intended to be.
If you want a homebrew fix, add a level of fatigue each day that the target is out of compliance, or make the damage impossible to heal until they go a day without taking it. Neither of those is a perfect solution, but they’re miles better than an average of 27.5 damage.
- (PHB): If you don’t have a Cleric in the party, you need this.
- (PHB): A great example of a “save or suck” spell. With the exception of undead, this works on any creature type, and paralysis takes a creature out of a fight almost as much as killing them. If you have an ally who fights in melee, send them to follow up with melee attacks. Automatic critical hits are too hard to pass up many melee allies. Keep in mind that targets get another save at the end of each of their turns, so you need to act quickly while targets are still affected.
-
(PHB): Situational, but
potentially very useful. “Famous” is a bit subjective, but there’s easy room
to argue that someone gaining notoriety in some fashion is famous enough to
qualify.
The spell calls out that you could learn “secret lore that has never been widely known,” which presents some interesting opportunities. You might be able to learn things like the identities of secretive, unknown enemies. The more you know already, the more detailed the information becomes, so repeated castings might lead to you learning a ton of useful information.
But the rules text also gives the DM a way to disguise information with “figurative language or poetry.” So your DM might give you some absolute nonsense in order to disguise relevant plot details. My advice: If the DM enjoys that, lean into it. If they’re doing it to keep you from spoiling the plot, let them keep their secrets for now.
- (PHB): You shouldn’t need this. It doesn’t do enough healing to justify the spell slot, so the best use case is to cast it when you have more than one ally at 0 hit points. If you reach that point, things have gone very seriously wrong. Healing Word is a much more efficient way to get people conscious, and considering how little healing you’re getting out of Mass Cure Wounds your allies will probably go down again anyway if anything looks at them funny.
- (PHB): Situational. Not an easy option in combat, but out of combat this provides a safe way to scout an area or to trick other creatures. If you do this in combat, you may be able to target enemies with spells while you’re safely behind total cover. You still measure range from your own body, but you can use the duplicate to see places that you normally can’t.
-
(PHB): The actual intent
of the spell is very situational, but this spell is accidentally a really
effective save-or-suck spell. Compare it to Hold Monster against a single
target, which is the same level. Hold Monster allows additional saves every
round, though admittedly Paralyzed is more lethal than Incapacitated. The
target is unaware of its surroundings, so you can reasonably get Advantage
on attack rolls against it, but, as long as it isn’t damaged, you could also
fully restrain the target before the spell’s duration expires. However, the
target gets Advantage on their save if you’re fighting it, so you need to
hit them with this before fighting starts. That typically means before
Initiative is rolled, unfortunately.
If you need to incapacitate a creature in an encounter with multiple enemies, your enemies likely won’t know how to break the effect (except by killing you), and once you’ve defeated everything else you can use Modify Memory to convince the target that the other creatures attacked them and you came to their rescue. Then you’ve won a fight, and earned the real treasure: the friends that you made along the way, and whatever their previous friends had in their pockets.
-
(PHB): At the level you
get this, 1,000gp is a steep price to pay for a spell that lasts 24 hours.
Save this for higher levels when you can cast something like Gate to summon
a powerful creature and bind it to your service for a long time. If you can
somehow get two Level 9 Wizard Spells, you could summon a Balor or something
equally powerful for a year and a day, then command it to conquer a
continent for you or something. Most creatures won’t be happy about this
form of servitude, of course, so be sure to plan for their sudden yet
inevitable betrayal.
For more help, see our Practical Guide to Summoning Spells.
- (PHB): This is an odd thing to find on the Bard spell list. Death is part of the game, so eventually you’ll need this, but it’s no fun to spend one of your limited spells known on a spell you might cast once or twice ever.
- (PHB): Cast this as a ritual. The ability to communicate silently across limitless distance is a massive tactical advantage in most situations where other creatures are a problem. The fact that this has no range limit once it’s in effect means that you can use it to communicate with allies while they scout around, potentially including familiars and summoned creatures. This also neatly solves the challenge of language barriers, so, if you can get a target to sit around for 10 minutes, you no longer need Tongues.
- (PHB): Technically situational, but it’s a situation that comes up frequently. Any time that you want to know what the BBEG is up to, cast Scrying and take a look. The spell gets easier the more you know the target, and after one face-to-face encounter you could easily make off with something tying you to the target to penalize their saving throw.
- (PHB): Very situational, but hard to replace in situations where you need it.
- (XGtE): Expertise for everyone! You won’t be throwing this on the Fighter for them to shove or grapple everything they meet (you have better combat buffs), but you can put this on a character before sneaking, before an important social situation, before investigating something important, or basically any other time that there’s an important skill check to be made and you have time to buff yourselves beforehand.
- (PHB): Start with Fireball. Shave 30 feet off the range, change the damage type to psychic, and change the saving throw to Intelligence. Very few creatures are good at intelligence saves, so expect most creatures to fail the save. The 8d6 damage feels underwhelming at this spell level, but subtracting a d6 from attack rolls and ability checks for a full minute is a significant debuff. This is a good option to start a fight with a large number of martial enemies because they’ll be impacted most by debuff and most martial enemies have poor Intelligence saves.
- (PHB): Situational, but generally one of the safest long-distance teleportation options, especially since it doesn’t have a cap on the number or size of creatures affected. However, how useful it is depends on the availability of convenient teleportation circles in your campaign. If your DM isn’t going to make such teleportation circles available and useful, look elsewhere.
- (PHB): Spirit Guardians, but it’s Psychic Damage and it knocks enemies Prone and pushes them away. The AOE and the damage aren’t amazing, but they really don’t need to be.
Level 6 Bard spells
-
(FRHoF): This
is another one of those Spirit Guardians-style spells: Turn it on, walk into
a room, blend your enemies. However, most of those spells have Emanations of
10 to 20 feet. Dirge has a staggering like radius of 60 feet, which will
cover all by the largest combat encounters. It pays for that massive radius
with a 1-minute duration (compared to 10 for similar spells) and only 3d10
damage (compared to 3d8 for level 3 Spirit Guardians). The secondary effect
knocks foes prone of halves their speed, effectively eating half of their
speed either way. Creatures (and remember that you can omit specific
creatures from the spell’s effect) also can’t heal while in the area, which
doesn’t come up often, but is a nice bonus.
Unlike other Spirit Guardians-style spells, you can’t easily abuse it by using forced movement to drag enemies in and out of the AOE. Because the radius is so large, you’ll likely fill the area of any combat encounter. Where similar spells are at their best when you can apply the damage several times per round, Dirge likely can’t do that. Instead, you’re here for the speed debuff. Stack it with other speed debuffs like Ray of Frost, the Slasher feat, and the Slow Weapon Mastery, and you can effectively freeze enemies in place. Combine that with some forced movement to get enemies into a small area, and you and your allies and bring down your enemies with a few low-cost area damage effects.
: Casting this as a Circle spell is brutal. Exhaustion imposes a penalty on saves which quickly turns this into a death spiral, and the inability to remove the Exhaustion by resting means that most creatures are permanently exhausted. If you can use this to hit important antagonists (the BBEG or their named lackies), it could shift the direction of an entire campaign unless those creatures have access to a spellcaster who can cast Greater Restoration and several hundred gp of diamond dust.
- (PHB): If you cast this, don’t expect to do anything else for the duration of the encounter. A save-or-suck to put targets to sleep every turn is hard to beat, and the fact that you can do it every turn is spectacular. Sure, targets only remain asleep until the spell ends, but that’s plenty of time for someone else in your party to walk over and deliver a guaranteed critical hit. When the target wakes from taking damage they’ll still be prone, and on your next turn you’re free to put them to sleep again.
- (PHB): Situational, and often difficult to use, but still very interesting. The hardest part of using the spell is finding an object from the place you want to go. Once you’ve solved that problem, Find the Path merely gives you directions. It doesn’t avoid hazards and it doesn’t point out traps, so be wary of traps and ambushes along the way.
- (PHB): Very situational. This spell is generally used by NPCs rather than by players since it’s so rare for players to stay in one place long enough to make the spell permanent, but if you have a permanent base and you’re a Wizard this is basically required. It’s like covering your mouth when you cough. You could choose to not do it, but I’ll think much less of you for it.
- PHB: An absolutely amazing spell, the 1,000gp cost means that you need to save it for special occasions.
- (PHB): Suggestion is absurdly powerful, and this is even better. Unlike Suggestion you don’t need to maintain Concentration, and the base duration for Mass Suggestion is triple Suggestion’s duration with the option to extend it with higher-level spell slots. If you’ve had good results with Suggestion, consider replacing it with Mass Suggestion.
-
(PHB): The primary appeal
of Otto’s Irresistible Dance is that the target suffers the effects
immediately, and doesn’t get to make a save until they have spent an Action
to make the save, and since they must spend all of their movement dancing,
they effectively lose at least one turn after being targeted (they still get
a Bonus Action). This is a great way to sneak past Legendary Resistances,
and if you’re positioned well in the initiative order your allies might get
to spend their turns attacking the target with Advantage.
In many situations, Hold Monster will be just as effective, if not more so. Hold Monster can target multiple foes, and doesn’t care if the target is immune to being charmed. Save Otto’s Irresistible Dance for powerful single foes who might otherwise be difficult to target with save-or-suck spells.
-
(PHB): This spell is weird
and complicated and I love it. The casting time is 1 Action, so you can use
it really quickly but somehow script a 5-minute performance in under 6
seconds. It has a 25gp expensive material component which it doesn’t consume
for reasons I dopn’t understand.
The 30-foot cube area is enough to fill a decently large stage, allowing you to script entire plays (albeit short ones). The triggering condition is flexible enough that you can use a separate casting of Programmed Illusion to trigger it. There’s a 10-minute cooldown on each performance, but you could have three spells overlapping to trigger a perpetual 15-minute loop. Just to mess with people, you could add another Programmed Illusion that triggers when another one is either dispelled or discovered to be an illusion. Honestly, if you can’t find a way to abuse this you’re not trying hard enough.
- (PHB): You don’t always want this running, but you always want this available. For 1 hour you can see through illusions and invisibility, effectively negating them, and you can see into the Ethereal plane so that you can see creatures using options like Blink or walking around on the ethereal plane on their own like Phased Spiders. However, you can only see 120 feet away, so you’re not totally protected. Invisible creatures can maintain a safe distance while observing and even attacking you if there is sufficient space to do so.
Level 7 Bard spells
- (TCoE): This is more a plot point than a spell. Don’t learn this unless your DM tells you to.
-
(PHB): A profoundly
effective scouting/escape option. Unless you’re fighting ethereal enemies,
you’re untouchable. You can see and hear into the material plane (albeit at
a limited distance), allowing you to spy on other creatures in person
without their knowledge. The spell lasts 8 hours, which is sufficient to do
a lot of things potentially including a Long Rest.
Note that this only works on a plane bordering the Ethereal Plane, so it only works on the Material Plane, the Feywild, and the Shadowfell.
- (PHB): An absolutely amazing way to isolate either your party or your enemies, but the 1,500 gp component will become expensive quickly. The duration is long enough to take a short rest, and there’s no save for enemies to resist it. Have an ally drop an AOE damage over time spell like Hunger of Hadar, then drop a Force Cage on top of it and you’re playing a magical game of “Will it Blend?”.
-
(PHB): This is a difficult
spell. The affectable area is huge, the distance is Sight (go climb a
mountain on a clear day), and the effects of the illusion are tangible
enough that you can physically interact with them, including picking up
sticks or stones.
But it’s unclear how far that goes: Can you burn the illusory wood to keep yourself warm? Can you smooth over difficult terrain in the same way that you can make smooth terrain difficult? Could you place stairs in the side of a clear cliff face? How far up and down does the effect stretch? The closest we have is these two tweets which indicate that you have a lot of leeway, and that the effects are real enough that a creature could drown in illusory water, burn in illusory lava, and climb illusory trees. Your DM will be the arbiter of exactly what you can get away with, but the spell itself is a wildly versatile toolbox.
-
(PHB): In the real world,
learning to cast this spell would mean that you could comfortably retire.
Each day you would walk out of the mansion, cast the spell again to recreate
the house for 24 hours, then you would return to your invisible extraplanar
abode to enjoy another 24 hours of abundant food, comfort, and
nearly-invisible servants. The size of the mansion amounts to 5000 square
feet, which is plenty to accommodate a party of adventurers and a sizeable
retinue. The suggested 100 banquet guests would each have 50 square feet (a
5×10 area) of space to themselves, but a cleverly laid out mansion could
easily turn that space into a large common area for feasting and a
collection of small rooms with bunk beds for sleeping off a magical 9-course
meal.
Beyond pure luxury, this offers some advantages over Leomund’s Tiny Hut. It’s harder to dispel, and impossible to find or reach except by magical means, making it a great short-term hideout even in locales that might be incredibly dangerous like dungeons.
- (PHB): This is an objectively bad spell. Compare it to Bigby’s Hand, and it’s pretty clear. Bigby’s Hand can move twice as fast, it can do more than attack, and, when upcast to the same level as Mordenkainen’s Sword, it does considerably more damage of the same damage type. The fact that both spells are in the Player’s Handbook is ridiculous.
- (PHB): A huge amount of Temporary Hit Points. There’s no specified duration, so these THP last until your next Long Rest, making it easy to cast this before walking into a dangerous situation.
- (PHB): Unpredictable. The AOE is great, and effects 6, 7, and 8 are all great (any two rays would be spectacular), but the spell is unpredictable and I’m always reluctant to recommend unpredictable spells because unpredictable means unreliable. If you’ve historically enjoyed Cone of Cold and want an upgrade I could see an opportunity here.
-
(PHB): Mislead with a
massively longer duration and better range. The language used to describe
the duplicate’s capabilities is nearly identical, but it’s much better than
just that. The extra range, the ability to see through its senses, and the
ability to move the image means that you’re effectively sending a flying,
you-shaped illusion to sneak around. If you disguise your real body before
casting the spell, you can scout an area disguised as someone else. If
you’re caught, no problem: the illusion can’t be destroyed without harming
you in any way.
In many ways, this is similar to Arcane Eye. Arcane Eye is lower level, and brings its own Darkvision and invisibility, so for stealthy scouting, it’s still the better choice.
- (PHB): Too situational to select as a spellcaster with a limited number of spells known. DnD doesn’t have injury rules which lead to limb removal except in very specific circumstances, so it’s not like characters are losing fingers and toes despite spending potentially years being sliced and diced by all manner of opponents.
- (PHB): If you learned Raise Dead you might replace it with Resurrection, but I don’t think Resurrection is a meaningful improvement over Raise Dead.
- (PHB): While many of the effects are wonderful, the inability to move the symbol and the high casting cost are prohibitive. Use Glyph of Warding.
- (PHB): With a 10-foot range and up to 8 targets you can easily teleport your entire party, and without the need to hold hands and form a circle you can often rescue the whole party in the midst of combat without too much trouble. However, Teleport has a complicated mechanic related to how familiar you are with the target destination and there’s often a possibility of mishap. Be sure to borrow a souvenir from new places so that you can easily return if necessary without the risk of a mishap.
Level 8 Bard spells
- (PHB): Difficult to use because it targets a single type of creature, but if you’re facing a homogenous group of enemies you can greatly hinder them with either option. Even against single creatures, using Sympathy to force an enemy to approach one of your party members (sympathy on a paladin to attract a lich) can force enemies into a situation which will end in their death.
- (PHB): Prevent spellcasting and the Magic Action is a huge problem for many high-level enemies, and Intelligence saves are consistently the lowest across the whole CR spectrum.
-
(PHB): Arguably the best
save-or-suck spell in the game, but the target gets Advantage on the save if
you’re fighting it. This means that you want to cast it on your target
outside of combat, but that presents a frustrating complication in the
rules. As soon as you declare that you want to cast this, the DM should call
for initiative to be rolled, at which point you’re now fighting the
creature. You’ll need to talk to your DM about how they want to handle this,
or your targets will always have Advantage on the save.
You can do a lot with perfect control over a creature for such a long period of time. Using the target as a thrall in combat is obviously tempting, but the target gets to repeat their saving throw every time that they take damage, so be very cautious if you choose to do so.
- (PHB): Very helpful in extended social situations, but you may do fine with Enhance Ability.
- (PHB): Only situationally useful. Mind Fortress and Nondetection are typically sufficient, but sometimes you need even more protection.
- (PHB): Gambling on a creature’s current hit point total is hard, especially since you get so few spell slots at this level, but if you can time this to hit a wounded enemy (or an enemy with a low hit point maximum like many spellcasters) it can take them out of the encounter long enough for you to win largely unopposed.
Level 9 Bard spells
- (PHB): This is, without a doubt, the best buff in the game. With an 8-hour duration you can throw it on the lucky recipient and watch them laugh their way through nearly any challenge for a full day worth of adventuring.
-
(XGtE): You sacrifice the
absolute power of True Polymorph for the ability to affect up to 10
creatures. The rules for handling creatures with no CR (your party) are
written to make this really unappealing compared to True Polymorph. Compared
to turning one ally into a CR 17+ dragon, turning up to 10 of your allies
into Tyrannosauruses (Tyrannosaurs? Tyrannosauri?) simply isn’t as
effective, even if the phrase “I turn us all into tyrannosauruses” is one of
the coolest things I can think to say during a game. Tragically, the targets
assume the beast’s mental statistics, so turning your party of adventurers
into toothy lizards may actually make them weaker.
You can use the spell offensively and the targets don’t get saving throws beyond the first, so turn your enemies into slugs or something and pitch them into the plane of fire or somewhere equally unpleasant.
- (PHB): Full healing and removing a bunch of status conditions in one spell is really tempting, but preventing all of that damage and all of those conditions with Foresight will work much better.
- (PHB): 100 hit points is a very low cap, but it’s hard to argue with how effective it is to outright slay a creature with no rolls involved. As an example, a 20th-level wizard with 12 Constitution will have 102 hit points (6+19*4+20), so basically nothing which is scary at this level will be immediately vulnerable, but if your allies can deal a bunch of damage quickly you may be able to use this in round 1 of a fight.
-
(PHB): The ultimate area
control spell. 10-minute duration with no Concentration, you and your allies
can pass through it unharmed, and if enemies move through it they can take
up to 50d6 damage, be turned to stone, and be sent to another plane. The
wall can be destroyed, but the process to do so is so laughably obnoxious
that I doubt anyone would actually try it (it’s a relic of early editions of
DnD). Drop a spell like Maddening Darkness or Sickening Radiance, then
encircle your enemies in a spherical Prismatic Wall. They’ll either die from
ongoing damage, or they’ll die from touching the wall. Or if you don’t want
to waste two spell slots, forcibly moves enemies through the wall using
things like Telekinesis or by having allies grapple or shove enemies through
the wall.
It’s possible to cast the wall horizontally, which allows you to do things like knocking enemies into the air by any number of means, causing them to pass through the wall on the way up and again on the way down. This is incredibly effective, but so is having an ally grapple an enemy and then walk them back and forth through the wall several times in one turn.
- (XGtE): Up to 10 creatures within 90 feet of you in any direction. Intelligence saves are the weakest save on average, even for high-CR monsters, so in many cases you can Stun enemies and keep them stunned for an incredibly long time. There’s no duration on the stun effect, so enemies with poor Intelligence may be permanently stunned. The damage is fine, but that’s absolutely an after-thought compared to the stun effect.
-
(PHB): If you want to use
this to turn yourself into a creature and fight in that form, Shapechange is
objectively better. True Polymorph’s advantage is that it can affect other
creatures.
Turning a creature into another creature can be used to turn yourself or an ally into a big scary monster or you can use it to turn an enemy into something harmless. The target gets Temporary Hit Points equal to the new form’s max hp, so you can turn them into something like a frog to give them a pittance of THP. The spell doesn’t end when the THP is depleted, so you now have 1 hour to smash your way through your target’s hit points while they’re using frog stats for everything except AC and alignment.
The second option lets you turn an object into a friendly creature. You’ll want to spend some time researching CR 9 creatures, then look for powerful options that are as small as possible so that you can use them in as many situations as possible. A summon spell will likely be just as good in combat, but creating something that can cast spells can get you access to a bunch of useful spellcasting without worrying about things like expensive spell components.
The spell’s final option allows you to turn a creature into an object. Turn them into a flower pot, then either throw them into a demiplane, plane shift them to Carceri, or dispose of them in some other permanent and irrevocable fashion like a bag of devouring. There is no rules text on what happens when you break the object, unfortunately, so you’ll need to discuss that with your DM.
