Complete Guide to Necrotic Damage Spells in D&D 5e
by Sam West, Twitter:@CrierKobold
Wither and rot - the iconic look of necrotic damage. It's the black wisps that wrap around a figure destined to die, the rapid decay of flesh from bone. It’s iconically evil, and will set you up to look and feel the part of a diabolical villain who detests life.
Necrotic damaging spells aren’t all particularly good, especially when stacked against comparable spells of different damage types. A lot of them appear to be designed as tools for antagonists, not players. Still, there are a decent selection of solid options I’d consider on any character sheet and throughout most of the spellcasting classes. For your consideration, here are all the Necrotic damage spells organized and ranked!
Necrotic Damage Spells by Level
The following spells can deal Necrotic damage when cast. Each can only deal Necrotic damage, deal Necrotic damage randomly, or have the option to deal Necrotic damage.
Spells that Deal Necrotic Damage
| Spell Level | Spells |
|---|---|
| Cantrip | Chill Touch, Sapping Sting, Toll the Dead |
| 1st | Arms of Hadar, Hex, Inflict Wounds |
| 2nd | Wither and Bloom |
| 3rd | Life Transference, Spirit Guardians, Summon Undead, Vampiric Touch |
| 4th | Blight, Shadow of Moil |
| 5th | Destructive Wave, Enervation, Negative Energy Flood, Summon Draconic Spirit |
| 6th | Circle of Death, Create Undead, Forbiddance, Harm, Summon Fiend |
| 7th | Finger of Death, Symbol |
| 8th | Abi-Dalzim’s Horrid Wilting, Illusory Dragon |
| 9th | Time Ravage |
Always Deals Necrotic Damage Spells by Level
The following spells always deal Necrotic damage when they deal damage. They can also deal an additional damage type to qualify, such as Necrotic and Poison damage.
Spells that Always Deal Necrotic Damage
| Spell Level | Spells |
|---|---|
| Cantrip | Chill Touch, Sapping Sting, Toll the Dead |
| 1st | Arms of Hadar, Hex, Inflict Wounds |
| 2nd | Wither and Bloom |
| 3rd | Life Transference, Spirit Shroud, Vampiric Touch |
| 4th | Blight, Shadow of Moil |
| 5th | Enervation, Negative Energy Flood |
| 6th | Circle of Death, Harm |
| 7th | Finger of Death |
| 8th | Abi-Dalzim’s Horrid Wilting |
| 9th | Time Ravage |
Necrotic Damage Spells by Class
The following are in order of spell level per class encompassing any spell that can deal Necrotic damage. Spells with parentheses following them are accessible through the specified subclass.
Inflict Wounds (Oathbreaker)
Spirit Guardians (Crown)
Spirit Shroud
Blight (Oathbreaker)
Destructive Wave
-
Chill Touch
Wither and Bloom
Blight
Enervation
Summon Draconic Spirit
Finger of Death
Abi-Dalzim’s Horrid Wilting
Chill Touch
Toll the Dead
Arms of Hadar
Hex
Spirit Shroud
Summon Undead
Vampiric Touch
Blight
Shadow of Moil
Enervation
Negative Energy Flood
Circle of Death
Create Undead
Summon Fiend
Finger of Death
Chill Touch
Sapping Sting
Toll the Dead
Wither and Bloom
Life Transference
Spirit Shroud
Summon Undead
Vampiric Touch
Blight
Enervation
Negative Energy Flood
Summon Draconic Spirit
Circle of Death
Create Undead
Summon Fiend
Finger of Death
Symbol
Abi-Dalzim’s Horrid Wilting
Illusory Dragon
Time Ravage
All Necrotic Damage Spells Ranked Worst to Best
All Necrotic damage spells aren’t created equally. For your consideration, here is my ranking for the worst to best Necrotic-damaging spells in the game. Any spell that can deal Necrotic damage is included in this ranking, even if only some versions of the cast deal that damage type.
These rankings aren’t ranking the total Necrotic 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. Life Transference: Life Transference doesn’t deal necrotic damage to your enemies: it deals Necrotic damage to you. The healing it offers is horrendous to boot, leaving this as a spell I’d literally never recommend casting.
26. Vampiric Touch: Spending your action to get access to a new action isn’t typically a great idea. The action in question is a 3d6 melee spell attack that hits about as hard as a greatsword and heals you a wee bit of hit points if you’re missing some. The combination of it being melee ranged and providing an action that will rarely feel good to use makes this close to useless. If you’re taking damage, you’re likely to drop concentration and lose this effect, making actually regaining meaningful hit points with it close to impossible.
25. Enervation: Enervation gets to be slightly higher because it's longer ranged than Vampiric Touch. Unfortunately, it has all the problems Witch Bolt also has in that the enemy creatures can end it whenever they want, and you are locked into reusing it every turn or lose the spell effect. The action isn’t even that amazing; usually, you’ll much prefer to spend other spell slots on exciting stuff instead of standing still and draining a target.
D Tier: Most Sheets Don’t Want These
25. Forbiddance: Stationary defensive effects that take time to set up are challenging to use in a game about being aggressive and smashing down dungeon doors. Forbiddance is a 6th level effect for this, and while I can envision some tables having an opportunity to use this against an onslaught of undead, that’s a once-in-a-campaign kind of use. The ritual tag makes this fairly harmless to use frequently, but I wouldn’t expect much from it as a player tool. DMs more regularly can use it to create areas players can’t teleport into and out of, but teleporting enemies isn’t that common of a problem, especially in scenarios where you have the time to set up the environment for defense.
24. Time Ravage: 10d12 damage for a 9th-level spell isn’t ever going to get me excited. A 6th-level Disintegrate does more damage than this on average. Its save-or-die nature can be a “permanent” way to present the creature with disadvantage on attack rolls, ability checks, and saving throws, which is novel, but so many other conditions can be as effective against specific enemies. You’re not often going to need all three. The aging fluff is cute as well, but chances are if you’re spending a 9th-level spell on a creature that deals damage, either you or they aren’t getting out of this fight alive. I’m ultimately left feeling like this can be enough text, but more regularly will be a 5d12 damage way to eat a Legendary Resistance.
23. Arms of Hadar: Warlocks don’t get regular Spellcasting like Clerics and Wizards; Pact Magic forces them to always cast with their highest-level spell slot. This sets some spells up that I don’t think are as bad as pretty terrible, as they can’t consistently come out as 1st level spells on Warlocks. This is the exact case for Arms of Hadar. 2d6 necrotic damage around you while giving you a pseudo-disengage with the reaction denial is a novel little tool to have access to. It isn’t worth a 2nd level slot for the 3d6 damage, nor a 3rd, 4th, or 5th for the single bonus die increase.
It isn’t uncastable, and will be solid enough in the early tiers as a way to deal area-of-effect damage, but it usually comes off character sheets pretty quickly.
22. Shadow of Moil: Another Warlock exclusive, and this one doesn’t even get an up-cast bonus. Shadow of Moil reflects 2d8 damage in a similar fashion to a Fire Shield. The big difference between these two effects is Fire Shield doesn’t eat your concentration, nor does it go away as you’re taking damage. You need to get at least 8d8 damage out of this for it to justify the action to cast it, and that’s almost never happening while your concentration stays up. That’s at least 4 successful saves in a row while you’re trying to get hit.
If you build towards this with Eldritch Mind and a high Con, maybe it has a home on a sheet, but I’m skeptical it’ll work out in a way that’s better than most other damage options.
21. Destructive Wave: 10d6 damage for a 5th-level spell isn’t a great rate for 9th-level characters. At 17th level, getting a close-range exclusive, action-costed 4th-level Fireball is a joke, and that’s exactly what paladins get with this. On melee ranged Bards that pick this up through magical secrets, it's a side-grade to another reliable area of effect damage spells, but most of the time this is going to be a reminder of just how far behind full-casters the half-casters are.
20. Symbol: Like Forbiddance before it, Symbol is a spell that requires a lot of setup to get value out of, and that’s just generally not something a lot of tables are interested in. It has a bunch of neat little modes that range from 10d10 necrotic damage to driving everything affected by it insane, and while I can imagine a lot of DMs finding this as an easy-to-use trap, players will have a lot harder a time finding places to use this trick.
19. Finger of Death: There is a tax applied to a bunch of the “evil” damage-based spells where they deal less damage on average compared to their “good-aligned” counterparts. Finger of Death showcases this cleanly against Disintegrate; you’re trading nearly 10 damage and a full spell level higher for the opportunity to bring a humanoid slain by this back as a zombie. That’s not a particularly good trade-off; what this basically sets up is an in-game mechanic to explain an army of zombies under a lich or high-level necromancer’s permanent control. As a player, it is still enough damage for a single spell slot, but is outclassed by cheaper alternatives.
18. Wither and Bloom: There is a small window where I see Wither and Bloom showing up- when you’re the lone spellcaster in a group of martial characters, and you want somebody to have a tool to get allies off of zero, and you’re a wizard or sorcerer. I don’t foresee that happening that often, but at those tables, it can have some moments where it’ll come in clutch and save a life or two. Otherwise, I’d take consistently higher damage effects, or cheaper, faster healing spells.
17. Negative Energy Flood: As mentioned previously, there is a tax on doing evil things as a player. In the case of Negative Energy Flood, you’re getting the potential to summon a zombie of a slain creature that attacks indiscriminately around it, killing anything alive. The exchange is this being 2d12 less damage than a custom spell from the DMG, which already aim to be less than classic spells like Fireball. There still aren’t a ton of great options for 5th-level single target damage spells, though, and at least the animation can be a fun, albeit unpredictable, upside.
16. Harm: When you compare Harm to Disintegrate, its pretty evident just how below the bar this hits. Not only does Harm fail to actually manage to get creatures to 0, it does less total damage. Its average damage is 49; Disintegrate’s modifier nearly out damages this on its own. It being a Cleric exclusive can leave it as something a few top-end clerics consider, but when Summon Celestial is available at the same time I really struggle to see what sheets actually want this.
15. Circle of Death: For Sorcerers, Wizards, and some Warlocks, 8d6 in an area is obtainable with Fireball. Circle of Death offers you an opportunity to extend Fireball’s area by an additional 30 ft. radius, which is very large, for just three extra spell levels. While a 60 ft. radius sounds appealing, most environments don’t need to hit a spell area that wide to get most of what you care to damage. I’d almost always rather have Fireball on my sheet, as it also can get cast at 3rd, 4th, and 5th level, and hits a large enough area. Even Wall of Fire and other areas of effect damage spells at lower levels pants this. If you need to hit a massive space and are fine enough with 8d6 damage, this can do something somewhat unique, but I wouldn’t put it on the vast majority of characters.
C Tier: Have a Home on Some Characters
14. Blight: For non-wizards and sorcerers, Blight is about as much damage as you can get out of a single 4th-level spell slot. It isn’t that much more damage than a Fireball, and its menial upside of dealing bonus damage to plants certainly doesn’t make it that better, but for classes like Druid looking for a place to stick spell slots when they’re concentrating on a Summon Fey or Conjure Woodland Beings, Blight will do the trick, even if its numbers are bit underwhelming. A 4th level slot is still low enough that I find this kind of thing passable.
13. Abi-Dalzim’s Horrid Wilting: Horrid Wilting matches the damage of an up-cast Fireball in terms of d8s. It's so sad to me just how deep we’re in with Necrotic damaging spells and this is the first one that matches the up-cast version of a 3rd level spell. Tis the cost of evil, I suppose. A 30 ft. cube usually is a downside over the 20 ft. radius sphere Fireball presents, and this only ever can be cast using an 8th level slot, but if you want a big chunk of damage that specifically thrashes water elementals and plants, this is entirely adequate.
12. Chill Touch : I have found Chill Touch to hit the sweet spot for damage cantrips for me. It does enough damage and has two small up-sides that allow it to come out from time to time during the mid-tiers of a campaign where it shines. Death Domain’s Reaper feature lets you double it up early, and against early undead, it feels incredible to use. Most of the time, its still just a d8 ranged attack roll as a cantrip, and that’s perfectly reasonable. I’m a big fan.
11. Sapping Sting: On Death Domain Clerics, in parties with other melee characters, Sapping Sting is excellent. On Wizards, it is a bit harder to use, but in compositions with melee characters, the prone condition is superb, often setting Sapping Sting up as one of the best debuff cantrips in the game. Outside of those groups, though, or in initiatives where monsters turns immediately follow yours, it's going to be challenging to take advantage of this effect.
10. Create Undead: Create Undead primarily acts as a top-end way to create an army of undead through your Wight lieutenants that can amass their own swarms of zombies. Beyond that, it's a mediocre summon effect that’s outclassed by most of the other newer and cheaper options. This makes it a must-have for the 15th level or higher undead summoners, and a miss for most other characters.
B Tier: Solid Options on Many Characters
9. Spirit Shroud: Spirit Shroud specifically goes on Warlocks with Thirsting Blade and Bladesingers well. On those two characters who can regularly up-cast it for 2-3d8 bonus damage per hit, their average turn in combat looks way better. Bladesingers in particular can defend their concentration with Shield and Bladesong’s outrageous AC bonus, making it reliably get more than enough extra on-hit damage to justify the cast over two to three rounds. Paladins and Clerics have a bit of a harder time justifying the slot for the bonus damage, but it's so solid on the other two options I think it deserves to slot above C tier.
8. Toll the Dead: 1d12 is about as much damage as you can get out of a cantrip at 1st level, and that’s normally what Toll the Dead provides. It encourages you to follow the lead of other characters, getting better damage in for waiting, but still fine enough damage if the target isn’t hurt yet. While I’ll still prioritize the small upsides presented in the lower damage cantrips, I can’t deny more sheets will be better off with the small damage bump this offers, especially when you can twin it with Reaper or Metamagic. I think of it as a slightly better Fire Bolt on average, which is a great place for a damage cantrip to be.
7. Spirit Guardians: Where Wizards and Sorcerers have robust instantaneous damage effects, Clerics get access to longer-duration persistent damage effects. Spirit Guardians is an excellent example; you get a 3d8 damage aura around you that punishes things near you. Two instances of damage can match the damage of a Fireball, and its range is such that you can actually reasonably stand near or behind your front-line allies and threaten enemies without necessarily drawing too much fire. Concentration feels pretty fair on this, and while it isn’t something I see cast every fight, it normally has a lot of room to show off and leave a big impact on a fight.
6. Inflict Wounds: 3d10 for a 1st level slot is as much as you can get. Its range certainly is a bit of an issue for it, but it gives melee ranged clerics a decent action in the early tiers beyond making attack rolls with mediocre weapons. When it misses it feels horrendous, but when it hits, it's usually doing the most damage any character can deal for its tier. I don’t love it past 3rd level, but prior, it's a great option for single-target damage on a wide variety of melee-ranged domains.
5. Hex: Hex plays a major role in empowering the multi-attack Warlock builds. Most warlocks fit into either the Thirsting Blade or Eldritch Blast camp, and both groups want to hit multiple times in a turn. The more times you hit something you Hex, the more d6s of damage you get, and you really only need 3d6 to justify the cast. It scales with level via duration, making it something you can attempt to keep up over multiple fights fairly easily. While I’ll often opt for Summon Undead or Shadowspawn when those become available, I’m pretty happy concentrating on Hex up until that point, or after if I’m going in on three or more attacks a round through Metamagic or Action Surge and Extra Attack.
4. Illusory Dragon: As we’ve seen, there aren’t amazing Necrotic damage options for Wizards, most of which look like worse versions of other area of effect damage spells. Fortunately, Illusory Dragon offers a top-end fantasy option that does hit like a bus.
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 it's 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.
If you want a top-end necrotic-damaging spell, this by far is the best option you’ve got.
A Tier: Excellent Spells for Anyone
3. Summon Fiend: The Summon Spells all are pretty stellar, as seen by these top three. Fiend I think is the worst of the three for its level restriction, but it’ll still be a superb spell. You can summon a devil to hurl fire, a demon to explode on death and chomp down on enemies, or a yugoloth for its teleporting extra attack action. All come with three attacks, and while only Demons deal necrotic, three instances of 1d12+9 damage a round at no action cost to you beyond the cast is a fantastic deal.
2. Summon Draconic Spirit: For an action and your concentration, you can get a dragon with multi-attack and a cone breath of necrotic damage it can use every round at no further costs to you. It’s large, so you can fly around on it if that’s what your heart wants, and it has enough hit points and AC to be a massive threat on its own. On average, I think a Draconic Spirit will slightly outclass its fiend counterparts.
1. Summon Undead: Summon Undead takes the crown as it is the cheapest to cast Summon effect here and works almost as well when up-cast to match its competition. Ghosts come with Incorporeal Passage, an incredible exploration tool, and Putrid and Skeletal have great combat options to empower 5th-level and higher characters in a major way fight to fight. You’ll probably want to spend 4th-level slots on this when able to get its multi attack working, but even at 3rd-level, this can massively power up a character sheet.
Best Classes for Necrotic Damage Spells
9. Ranger: Rangers come in last with zero ways to deal necrotic damage from their spells. Last place sounds right to me!
8. Artificer: Artificer has close to no necrotic damage spells, with only Aclehmist (the worst of the options) coming with Blight. It's about as close to nothing as you can get, especially seeing as they’re half-casters and not getting access to 4th-level slots until 13th level.
7. Bard: Bards only get Symbol and otherwise have to use Magical Secrets to get better options. I don’t rate Symbol particularly highly, but it is better than nothing, so Bards get 7th!
6 Paladin: We’re still not in a position where I love the necrotic damage options available to the class, but Paladins always get Spirit Shroud, and Crown and Oathbreaker come with solid necrotic damage options. Crown getting Spirit Guardians really is where I’m most excited to see necrotic damage, and that isn’t enough to earn it a higher rank. Still, its definitely a ton better than the prior three options!
5. Druid: Blight and full-casting is mainly what puts druids in this spot. There is a substantial difference between their Necrotic access and all of the classes below them, though. I think a Spores Druid could probably pull off a necrotic damage-themed sheet fairly well with Wither and Bloom and Summon Draconic Spirit assisting along the way with their Halo of Spores and Animate Dead leaning into the undeath ascetic.
4. Sorcerer: Summon Draconic Spirit is the big hitter on the Sorcerer spell list, and while it looks similar to Druid beyond that, their ability to Twinned Spell Blight definitely sets them up to hit harder with Necrotic damage. Chill Touch gives them a bit more to do early as well, and Horrid Wilting gives them a splashy top-end fantasy to eventually realize.
3. Cleric: Now things are getting interesting; Clerics come with Toll the Dead, Spirit Guardians, and Inflict Wounds, and even have some other solid options within the Death Domain. I think twinning Toll the Dead, Chill Touch, and Sapping Sting offers a ton of bonus power, and definitely sets it up as the best early-game Necrotic damage dealer. They don’t get that robust of upper-level options, though, usually resulting in them transitioning toward necromancy and undead summoning. They aren’t the best at that either, though.
2. Warlock: Warlocks love dealing Necrotic damage. They get Hex, Toll the Dead, Summon Undead, and Shadow of Moil, all of which can make it easily onto a wide variety of character sheets. What’s stopping them from being #1 is Pact Magic. The limitations it presents make it challenging to regularly get a lot of necrotic damage out at once, instead normally relying on singular effects that are packed full of round-to-round necrotic goodness.
1. Wizard: Full casting paired with a list that rivals Warlocks puts Wizards on top. All of the Summon spells play great on them, and they’ve got ample access to area of effect necrotic damage in the upper tiers. Wither and Bloom is a bit lackluster for their early game spell slots, but past 5th level, I think they clearly are set up to have the biggest, splashiest means of dealing Necrotic damage in the game.
Wither Your Foes With Necrotic Damage
With these spells in mind, go forth to shrivel the world of the living to dust. The power of necromancy may not match that of fire or cold, but you can easily devote a handful of spell slots to the damage type and create a character that obliterates enemies with massive pools of dice in a variety of classes. Have fun with it!
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