Complete Guide to Cold Damage Spells in D&D 5e
by Sam West, Twitter:@CrierKobold
Through the packed bazaar streets an overdressed foreign figure cloaked in a heavy azure robe hurries away from a band of pursuing brigands. The chase leads to a tight alley- a dead end. “Listen, I’m just passing through; you don’t need to do this-” the figure starts before one of the thieves chuckles and interrupts him. “Get em!”, the brigand shouts as he leads the charge.
A cold blast of snow and ice dust blasts from the alley, startling the merchants and other passersby. The brigands were arrested later in a frozen state, dragged off in large cubes of ice to thaw in prison for the evening.
Cold magic embodies the raw power of a winter storm. It chills creatures to their bones, cracking skin and freezing them solid. If you want to harness this power for yourself in Dungeons and Dragons, you’re in the right place. Presented for your consideration, every Cold Damaging spell in 5th Edition, sorted and ranked!
Cold Damage Spells by Level
The following spells can deal cold damage when cast. Each can only deal cold damage, deal cold damage randomly, or has the option to deal cold damage.
Spells that Deal Cold Damage
| Spell Level | Spells |
|---|---|
| Cantrip | Frostbite, Ray of Frost |
| 1st | Absorb Elements*, Armor of Agathys, Chaos Bolt*, Chromatic Orb, Frost Fingers, Ice Knife |
| 2nd | Dragon’s Breath, Rime’s Binding Ice, Snilloc’s Snowball Swarm |
| 3rd | Elemental Weapon, Glyph of Warding, Hunger of Hadar, Spirit Shroud, Summon Shadowspawn |
| 4th | Conjure Minor Elementals, Elemental Bane, Fire Shield, Ice Storm |
| 5th | Cone of Cold, Summon Draconic Spirit |
| 6th | Freezing Sphere, Investiture of Ice, Wall of Ice |
| 7th | Prismatic Spray* |
| 8th | Illusory Dragon |
| 9th | Prismatic Wall |
| (Spells with a * can deal cold damage, but only randomly.) | |
Spells that Always Deal Cold Damage by Level
The following spells always deal Cold damage when they deal damage. They can also deal an additional damage type to qualify, such as bludgeoning and cold damage.
Spells that Always Deal Cold Damage
| Spell Level | Spells |
|---|---|
| Cantrip | Frostbite, Ray of Frost |
| 1st | Armor of Agathys, Frost Fingers, Ice Knife |
| 2nd | Rime’s Binding Ice, Snilloc’s Snowball Swarm |
| 3rd | Hunger of Hadar, Summon Shadowspawn |
| 4th | Ice Storm |
| 5th | Cone of Cold |
| 6th | Freezing Sphere, Investiture of Ice, Wall of Ice |
| 7th | - |
| 8th | - |
| 9th | Prismatic Wall |
Cold Damage Spells By Class
The following are in order of spell level per class encompassing any spell that can deal cold damage. Spells with parentheses following them are accessible through the specified subclass.
Frostbite
Ray of Frost
Absorb Elements
Elemental Weapon
Glyph of Warding
Elemental Bane
Fire Shield (Armorer, Battle Smith)
Ice Storm (Artillerist)
Cone of Cold (Artillerist)
Glyph of Warding
Prismatic Spray
Prismatic Wall
Elemental Weapon (Forge)
Glyph of Warding
Spirit Shroud
Ice Storm (Tempest)
Frostbite
Ice Knife
Elemental Weapon
Conjure Minor Elementals
Elemental Bane
Fire Shield (Wildfire)
Ice Storm
Cone of Cold (Land)
Summon Draconic Spirit
Armor of Agathys (Conquest)
Elemental Weapon
Spirit Shroud
Ice Storm (Ancients)
Absorb Elements
Elemental Weapon
Frostbite
Ray of Frost
Absorb Elements
Chaos Bolt
Chromatic Orb
Ice Knife
Dragon’s Breath
Rime’s Binding Ice
Snilloc’s Snowball Swarm
Ice Storm
Cone of Cold
Summon Draconic Spirit
Prismatic Spray
Frostbite
Armor of Agathys
Elemental Weapon (Hexblade)
Hunger of Hadar
Spirit Shroud
Summon Shadowspawn
Elemental Bane
Cone of Cold (Fathomless, Hexblade)
Frostbite
Ray of Frost
Absorb Elements
Chromatic Orb
Frost Fingers
Ice Knife
Dragon’s Breath
Rime’s Binding Ice
Snilloc’s Snowball Swarm
Glyph of Warding
Spirit Shroud
Summon Shadowspawn
Conjure Minor Elementals
Elemental Bane
Fire Shield
Cone of Cold
Summon Draconic Spirit
Freezing Sphere
Prismatic Spray
Illusory Dragon
Prismatic Wall
All Cold Damage Spells Ranked Worst to Best
All Cold Spells aren’t created equally. For your consideration, here is my ranking for the worst to best cold spells in the game. Any spell that can deal cold damage is included in this ranking, even if only some versions of the cast deal cold damage.
These rankings aren’t ranking the total cold damage a spell is capable of dealing but how useful the spell will likely be on a character sheet. Let's dive in!
F Tier: Near Uncastable
27. Chaos Bolt: Chaos Bolt does less damage than it should and fails to meaningfully deliver on the promise of being a fun, chaotic effect. Most characters that take this are better off casting Chromatic Orb or any other 1st-level damaging spell than this.
26. Elemental Bane: While flavorful, Elemental Bane is a horrendous way to spend a spell slot. You need to be actively working with some other character who is routinely dealing cold damage every round for this to start dealing damage, and more often than not, you’re getting pitiful damage numbers. The only exception is if you’re in a group that entirely does only cold damage, in which case this might be better than some of the D-tier options above it, but you’re almost always going to be better off just casting a damaging spell over this.
25. Prismatic Spray: 10d6 damage for a 7th-level slot is a terrible rate. One in eight times, this might do twice that, but you have no control over it. Like Chaos Bolt, this fails to do anything interesting with the chaotic elements of it and feels like a waste of paper that is outclassed by most other area-of-effect damage spells in the game.
D Tier: Most Sheets Don’t Want These
24. Snilloc’s Snowball Swarm: The only saving grace Snilloc’s Snowball Swarm has is its range. 90 feet is really large for its level, and while its area and damage on hit are low for its level, there will be a few niche windows where you’ll find it still hits most of the creatures you want to hit for enough damage for its cost that it won’t be unusable.
23. Frost Fingers: Like Chaos Bolt, Frost Fingers is a worse version of another damaging spell, Burning Hands. At least this isn’t that much worse, and the freezing water ability does somewhat help it satisfy the fantasy it promises. I’d still recommend just having it deal 3d6 cold damage instead to at least let it be at par with Burning Hands.
22. Glyph of Warding: Glyph of Warding is a novel effect, but the reality of most D&D games is defensive spells you have to palace somewhere and get an enemy to trigger it are incredibly difficult to use. Adventurers are aggressors; you’re going to be pushing into spaces far more often than holding one.
The main practical benefit of it is using it to abuse duplicating Concentration effects that are 3rd level or lower for 200 gold per cast. If you want an hour-long spell cast to get a bonus hour-long concentration spell like a second Summon Beast or Shadowspawn, this can work, but most tables aren’t going to find that this fits their adventuring schedule.
21. Prismatic Wall: The wall spells are ticky and weird to play with, and none highlights this more than Prismatic Wall. It usually is just a tool you try to push things into to get all the effects at once. For a 9th-level spell, that is way too much work for not nearly enough payoff when things like Wish and Meteor Swarm its competition. If you can get something forced through it, you’re getting 50d6 damage with a potential restrain and blind, which is great, sure, but not anything to write home about when it comes to the best of the best spells.
20. Ice Storm: Despite being on a ton of different spell lists, Ice Storm does pitiful damage for its slot with just 2d8 bludgeoning and 4d6 cold, especially compared to the majority of 3rd-level options you get before it. The difficult terrain in the 20 ft. radius area isn’t nearly enough to justify the drop in damage. Still, 2d8+4d6 is close to a 3rd-level Fireball. Archetypes like Oath of Ancients get extra bonuses to their casting, and this is kind of the best spell that archetype gets for the area of effect damage making it a niche option a few characters do actually want.
19. Investiture of Ice: The Investiture spells all struggle to find a really spectacular place to shine. You’re spending a 6th-level slot and an action for a new action that gives you a 2nd-level Cold damaging Burning Hands for free. That’s a lot of hoops to jump through to get a short ranged 2nd level spell at will. Many times you’re going to have a better action than this, and the other text predominately just locks down areas. If you can care about all of the difficult terrain this creates and speed reductions, I could see it being at least a fun spell to play with, but I’m not convinced it will regularly justify its slot.
C Tier: Have a Home on Some Characters
18. Chromatic Orb: 3d8 damage for a 1st level slot is entirely fine. Chromatic Orb is the floor of 1st level damage spells; anything less than this and it’s not getting onto my characters, especially if I’m mainly looking for a specific kind of damage to fulfill a role in creating an elementalist or other damage-type fantasy. There are better damage options like Magic Missile available to you, and they’re better by a lot, because they can’t miss, but plenty of characters in the low tiers can make great use of this.
17. Armor of Agathys: If you want to weaponize Armor of Agathys, you kind of have to fully commit to melee-ranged combat, and seek out other tools to give you features like resistance. It's the rare case where it's at its best as a warlock spell, as it's at its best with its up-cast slot as it’s more likely to reflect more attacks and deal multiplicatively more damage.
I’d stay away from casting it prior to casting it with a 3rd level slot, but past that, Conquest Paladins and Warlocks can do some neat stuff with this.
16. Elemental Weapon: It's hard for me to say this is fine for some characters, namely because Hunter’s Mark and Hex both exist and do most of what Elemental Weapon is doing, but better in terms of dice size. +1 to hit, though, alongside making your weapon magical, makes this a massive upgrade from the mundane Magic Weapon, leaving it as something I still don’t want to have to cast, but it does improve your damage and hit modifiers meaningfully.
15. Spirit Shroud: When able, I’m taking Spirit Shroud over Elemental Weapon when it comes to on hit damage spells for melee characters. Its duration is much lower, but it ups the dice size to a d8 and comes with two other interesting effects with an up-cast that's actually amazing. A 5th-level slot for a bonus 3d8 damage on hit for a Pact of the Blade Warlock is a great deal, even if your concentration is potentially in jeopardy. It's another effect you want to up-cast when able, and on the characters that both have upper-tier slots early and Extra Attack, I think Spirit Shroud will find a home where it’ll be fairly effective. Without the upper-level casting, I’d probably go for the +1 to hit from Elemental Weapon.
14. Wall of Ice: This is a neat little spell that does a lot of different things. On cast, you’re getting 10d6 line damaging spell, which is just 1d6 under a 6th-level Fireball. On top of that, you have a wall creatures have to break through, and should they break through it, they suffer an additional 5d6 cold damage when they pass through the created sheet of frigid air. 15d6 and a wall for a 6th-level slot is a lot more than a typical are of effect damage spell, but it does have a bunch of placement and consistency issues. It won’t hit everything you want that often, and often will be easy for enemies with climb or fly speeds to ignore, making it a bit more niche than its other damage counterparts.
13. Ray of Frost: Possibly controversially, I don’t think Ray of Frost is going to find a home on a lot of character sheets. Most of the time, this is going to function like a lower damage Fire Bolt. There’s a small window of space where it’ll force an enemy to Dash instead of being able to approach and attack, and should that creature have a reasonable ranged weapon, they can opt to do that instead. It can be a challenge to make the slow valuable. Still, it has a decent range with decent enough damage for a Cantrip, making it entirely reasonable to put on your sheet.
B Tier: Solid Options on Many Characters
12. Freezing Sphere: Like Wall of Ice, Freezing Sphere does almost the same damage as Fireball, but has two big upsides the wall doesn’t. First, it hits a 60 ft. radius sphere, well over double the area Fireball hits. Second, it can be given to an ally in a prep round to double up your casting efficiency in a fight, potentially leading to rounds where you’re getting two giant damaging areas. It can make a great trap to slip into a pocket as you’re passing by.
If it did just 1d6 more damage I’d call it an A-tier spell, but ultimately this is outshone by higher damage options that hit similar areas or have more casting flexibility.
11. Fire Shield: While not often thought of as a cold spell, Fire Shield has a mode to deal Cold damage instead. What makes Fire Shield excellent is what mechanic is omitted from it: Concentration. You can take as much damage as you’d like without worrying about losing the spell, rebuffing the attackers with 2d6 cold damage per hit. It fits best on characters like Artificers who can build to take more attacks, but can be a great option for any mid-ranged caster who expects to take five or more hits before it expires.
10. Frostbite: Vicious Mockery has been a Bard all-star since its printing. Frostbite gives that utility to a wider array of classes in a cold-themed way with slightly larger dice. A damaging cantrip that also does something else is where I usually want my damage cantrips to be. Disadvantage on an attack roll is amazing, especially in the lower tiers when I want my cantrips to be at their best.
It's still a cantrip that’s easily replaced, though, and not something I’m ever that excited to spend my action on.
9. Dragon’s Breath: Investiture of Ice struggles to justify its slot; when you drop the damage by a d6 and make it a 2nd-level spell, I’m suddenly much more interested. A bonus action setup for a repeatable 15 ft. cone of damage will stretch your resources in the early tiers, as you can just commit to one 2nd level spell for a fight and not need to mess around with the far worse damaging options cantrips tend to cover. Past 5th level I probably would stop casting this, but early on, this spell’s stellar.
8. Ice Knife: Ice Knife usually functions as a slightly lower damage Burning Hands, but with two major upsides: its range, and higher damage to a single target. Dropping the area of effect damage is a pretty substantial downside, but most characters will find these tradeoffs entirely acceptable. It's cheap, reliable, and deals reasonable damage in a reasonable area.
7. Illusory Dragon: Despite you literally creating an Illusory Dragon that flies around and blasts breath weapons at people, this spell works closer to an Arcane Hand than a Summon Draconic Spirit. In that context, though, Illusory Dragon is one of the best bonus action damaging spells in the game. An 8th-level spell needs to be dealing north of 14d6 damage to justify casting it as a damage spell; this spell gives you half that damage each turn its out. Getting two uses from it isn’t a particularly high bar, and should anything opt to waste actions trying to discern this is an illusion instead of attacking you, you’re getting even more out of it.
The short duration, cost, and concentration component are holding this back from A tier. Casting an 8th level spell for one round of 7d6 damage before losing concentration and getting nothing further is rough. As long as you get three rounds from this, though, it’ll be superb.
A Tier: Excellent Spells For Anyone
6. Rime’s Binding Ice: Fizban’s Treasury of Dragons introduced Rime’s Binding Ice to Wizards and Sorcerers, finally giving them a spectacular 2nd-level damage spell. 3d8 in a 30 ft. cone is a great area and fine enough damage, but on top of the reasonable damage, creatures that fail a save are rooted in place until they break the ice, wasting precious actions. Spells that do a great chunk of damage and eat enemy actions are going to routinely prove themselves as flexible and invaluable assets to your spell repertoire.
5. Cone of Cold: Fireball sets the damage bar for evocation spells, and Cone of Cold not only meets that bar, but it also hits a massive area. On top of that, it up-casts better with it getting d8 up-cast damage instead of d6. Anything that can compete with Fireball is going to be excellent at many, many tables. Plus, the flavor is too perfect with the freeze-on-death bonus text.
4. Summon Shadowspawn: When deciding what to concentrate on, you generally want long-duration, high-impact effects. This is exactly what the Summon spells give you. Summon Shadowspawn happens to deal cold damage with its Chilling Hand, too, making it an easy way to get round-to-round cold damage that scales with the spell level you cast it with. It even reflavors beautifully into an ice elemental with Weight of Sorrow on the Despair option slowing everything around it, making it easily slot onto cryomancers.
3. Summon Draconic Spirit: Summon Draconic Spirit is an upgrade on Summon Shadowspawn (mostly). It has a breath weapon you can opt to be cold, giving you the area effect cold damage round after round on top of two, three, or four attacks based on the spell slot used. It's large as well, meaning if you’re medium and want a flying mount, you’ve got it here. It lacks the slow, but come on. You get an ice-breathing dragon buddy. That’s sweet.
2. Absorb Elements: Absorb Elements is cheap to cast, using only a reaction and a 1st level slot, is on a ton of spell lists, and reduces incoming damage substantially. The bonus elemental damage you then deal on hit is gravy; the main use case of this is helping you survive enemy Cone of Colds and Fireballs. Any character that can put Absorb Elements on their sheet, especially those past 5th level, will benefit from having it.
1. Conjure Minor Elementals: Ice Mephits come in groups of four when summoned with Conjure Minor Elementals, and each of those comes with a ton of utility and damage options. Each gets a once-per-day Fog Cloud, the False Appearance traits to disguise as icicles and shards of ice, claw attacks that deal hybrid cold and slashing damage, and a 2d4 15 ft. cone Frost Breath for 2d4 damage each that has Recharge 6.
Conjure Minor Elementals can do even more powerful stuff when summoning eight lower CR mephits, but four Ice Mephits conjured with this spell are a huge boon to the ice mage fantasy and will give you a ton of extra power for a single 4th level slot. They last an hour, and wildly alter your team’s action economy in fights. Out of fights, they make excellent servants and spies that can help complex plans come to fruition with their +3 Stealth and 30 ft. fly speeds. This spell is busted.
Best Classes for Cold Damaging Spells
With all of the spells organized and ranked, what classes can best take advantage of these cold damaging spells?
9. Bard : If you don’t get Cold spells through Magical Secrets, you’ve got a grand total of three cold damage spells to pick from, and all of them are Ds or worse. Bards by far have the worst time dealing cold damage.
8. Ranger: Ranger basically relies on Elemental Weapon to lead their cold damage fantasy. Absorb Elements is excellent, but isn’t usually going to be the central focus of a “cold damage” build, and the class gets few other ways to obtain other cold damaging spells.
7. Cleric: With most of their damage dealing Cold effects working on weapon hit, lacking Extra Attack makes cleric not a great choice for these builds. Ice Storm is accessible through Tempest, barely inching it above ranger.
6. Paladin: Paladin actually has some legs when it comes to dealing Cold damage. Oath of Conquest can do some cool stuff with Armor of Agathys, and thanks to Extra Attack, both Elemental Weapon and Spirit Shroud have more room to show off. Even Ice Storm can be great when paired with the Oath of Ancients capstone feature that lets them cast spells as a bonus action each turn, letting you blast out three or four storms alongside your two attacks a turn with a bonus 2-3d8 cold from Spirit Shroud.
5. Artificer: Artillerist carries a lot of the Cold damage potential of this class. Getting Frostbite and Ray of Frost as cantrips helps all of the specilties do some amount of cold damage out the gate, and Armorer and Battle Smith can use Elemental Weapon and Fire Shield to get consistent cold damage out round to round as well.
4. Druid: Ice Knife and Conjure Minor Elementals do a ton of heavy lifting in bringing druids into the conversation. Circle of the Land (Arctic) comes with Cone of Cold with Wildfire having Fire Shield. Agnostic of circle, you can get Ice Storm and Summon Draconic Spirit to sure up your mid-tier fantasy. If you want a summoner and conjurerer of ice spirits, Druid is a great option.
3. Warlock: Warlocks all have access to Armor of Agathys for cold damage reflection builds. Summon Shadowspawn is a house of a cold damaging spell, as is Cone of Cold, which is accessible in two different subclasses. Fire Shield can stack on top of Armor of Agathys in Fiend or Genie, and Spirit Shroud pairs with Thirsting Blade and Pact Magic slots to make the most out of the spell. If you want to do the on-hit cold damage thing, you probably want to go with Warlock.
2. Sorcerer: Sorcerer’s have a stellar low-tier package of cold spells with Ice Knife, Rime’s Binding Ice, and Dragon’s Breath. On top of that, metamagic can open up builds to twin Frostbite to debilitate multiple enemies at once for cheap, and twin Ice Knife to deal stacking area of effect damage. It peeters out a bit between 2nd and 5th level spells, though, and while Summon Draconic Spirit is a big deal, it lacking some 3rd and 4th level spell support put it behind the number one class.
1. Wizard: Wizards get it all; Ice Knife for the low tiers, Rime’s Binding Ice to lock areas down with decent damage, Summon Shadowspawn for a cheap, long duration cold specter, Conjure Minor Elementals for a swarm of Ice Mephits, Cone of Cold, Freezing Sphere, and Illusory Dragon. Its just a list of the best cold damaging spells. If you want to blast out cold damage round after round, while sorcerer can assist with Metamagic, the raw flexibility offered by wizard’s expansive list makes it my number one choice.
Harness the Power of the Cold
When it comes to cold damage, you’ve got no shortage of options even across levels. Go forth, take these spells and live your dreams of bringing about the next Ice Age!
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