Complete Guide to Poison Damage Spells in D&D 5e
by Sam West, Twitter:@CrierKobold
Despite being an iconic method for killing in fantasy stories, Poison damage is a rarity for 5th Edition characters. There are a measly four unique spells that deal only Poison damage, and only a handful more that have the option to deal poison damage. If you’re hoping to build a poisonous character who suffocates enemies in horrid clouds or injects them with lethal toxins, you’re options are majorly limited.
That being said, there is one class that can pull it off. Here, for your consideration, are all of the poison-damaging spells in the game sorted by level and class, then ranked!
Poison Damage Spells by Level
The following spells can deal Poison damage when cast. Each can only deal Poison damage, deal Poison damage randomly, or has the option to deal Poison damage.
Spells that Deal Poison Damage
| Spell Level | Spells |
|---|---|
| Cantrip | Infestation, Poison Spray |
| 1st | Chaos Bolt*, Chromatic Orb, Ray of Sickness |
| 2nd | Dragon’s Breath |
| 3rd | - |
| 4th | - |
| 5th | Cloudkill, Summon Draconic Spirit |
| 6th | - |
| 7th | Prismatic Spray* |
| 8th | Illusory Dragon |
| 9th | Prismatic Wall |
| (Spells with a * can deal poison damage, but only randomly.) | |
Always Deals Poison Damage Spells by Level
The following spells always deal Poison damage when they deal damage. They can also deal an additional damage type to qualify, such as Poison and Acid damage.
Spells that Always Deal Poison Damage
| Spell Level | Spells |
|---|---|
| Cantrip | Infestation, Poison Spray |
| 1st | Ray of Sickness |
| 2nd | - |
| 3rd | - |
| 4th | - |
| 5th | Cloudkill |
| 6th | - |
| 7th | - |
| 8th | - |
| 9th | - |
Poison Damage Spells by Class
The following are in order of spell level per class encompassing any spell that can deal Poison damage. Spells with parentheses following them are accessible through the specified subclass.
All Poison Damage Spells Ranked Worst to Best
All Poison damage spells aren’t created equally. For your consideration, here is my ranking for the worst to best Poison-damaging spells in the game. Any spell that can deal Poison 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 Poison 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
11. 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.
10. 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
9. Prismatic Wall: The wall spells are tricky 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.
8. Ray of Sickness: The first of the “poison exclusive” spells isn’t ideal. Ray of Sickness needs two things to go right to justify the cast; you need to hit and you need the creature to fail a save. The payoff is less damage than its competition and a single round of being poisoned. It technically does something, and in the windows the poison comes through it’ll be a bit better than mediocre other damage options, but most of the time this is going to feel pretty horrendous to use.
7. Poison Spray: I have a soft spot for Poison Spray; 1d12 is as much damage as any cantrip can deal, and while Toll the Dead has certainly usurped this as the go-to cantrip for that die size, Poison Spray still will get the job done. Its limited range usually leaves you in trickier positions than if you just took the 1 damage weaker on average Fire Bolt, but to me, that’s an upside. I enjoy having to consider positioning and risk management as a caster. For most, this isn’t worth the work, and basically every other damage cantrip in the game will be more consistent than this.
6. Cloudkill: If you can get a creature to suffer within the Cloudkill for two rounds, it’ll do enough damage to be worth the cast. That’s easier said than done. Its area is only a 20 ft. radius, which is easy to move out of, and plenty of environments will dismiss it the turn it comes down. The heavy obscurity also isn’t that beneficial, as it prevents allies from easily shooting into the cloud, and enemies absolutely will want to get out of it. The movement, too, makes it harder yet to get value out of, as even should you manage to lock a creature in place for a few rounds, the Cloudkill will eventually roll off of them, worsening its best-case scenario. Paired with an Entangle or other rooting effects, I think it can be fine, but that’s a lot of work for a slightly higher-damage Fireball with downsides.
C Tier: Have a Home on Some Characters
5. Infestation: 1d6 damage for a cantrip isn’t a great rate; normally, you’ll want a moderate effect paired with it, and Infestation doesn’t typically deliver. When you compare this to Frostbite, I’ll take the disadvantage on the creature’s next attack roll over the random movement in the vast majority of encounters. Still, Infestation can enable disengages when things are going south, and can work to occasionally get an enemy to shred themself in a Spike Growth, so it has a home on some sheets.
4. 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 fine use of this.
B Tier: Solid Options on Many Characters
3. Dragon’s Breath: 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, and notably is by far the best early game poison option you can take.
2. 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
1. Summon Draconic Spirit: Summon Draconic Spirit has a breath weapon you can opt to be poison, giving you the area effect poison 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. Crucially, it's also three levels lower than Illusory Dragon, meaning you can reliably use this in the mid tiers and live your black dragon fantasy to its fullest.
Best Classes for Poison Damage Spells
9 and 8. Bard and Ranger: It's nuts to me that Rangers don’t get any Poison damaging spells, yet here we are. Both classes have zero options on their spell list. Thus, they utterly suck at dealing poison damage!
7. Paladin: Oath of Conquest Paladins get Cloudkill. That’s technically more than Bard and Ranger, but it’s the kind of technicality that really doesn’t matter. They might as well also entirely lack Poison damaging spells.
6. Cleric: Cleric is in a similar boat to Paladin with a single subclass granting them access to Cloudkill. The difference is because Clerics have full-casting, they can actually use the spell before the game is over.
5. Artificer: If you want to play a character that can do Poison damage at level one, technically Artificers can with Poison Spray! It isn’t anywhere close to where you want to be, but hey, its better than not getting any options at all!
4. Warlock: Undying and Undead warlocks get a single Poison spell each, witch alongside the class's natural access to Poison Spray, set them up slightly above Artificer. You’re not going to find a lot of success building around Ray of Sickness and Poison Spray generally speaking, though.
3. Druid: Summon Draconic Spirit paired with Infestation and Poison Spray may seem like pitifully few options, yet that’s still enough to get third. Summon Draconic Spirit is so much better than all the other options we’ve seen so far; it alone would earn Druid this placement, and the bonus cantrips are gravy on top of that.
2. Wizard: With Chromatic Orb, Dragon’s Breath, and Summon Draconic Spirit, you can actually meaningfully consistently use Poison damage if you want to. Wizards even come with Poison Spray for cantrip damage early, and while it won’t be the most powerful build the world, you can lean on the draconic effects into Illusory Dragon to sculpt a character that uses Poison damage about as well as any character can.
1. Sorcerer: Normally, Wizard gets a few more spells than Sorcerer, and while Illusory Dragon is a big deal and sorely missed, Twinned Spell makes spells like Ray of Sickness usable. They get all the same low-tier effects that matter. Quickened Spell Poison Spray makes it somewhat usable at 5th level in close quarters. It isn’t the most powerful thing the class can do, but Metamagic majorly empowers the worse poison options in a way that would make me actually excited to use them.
Poison Damage May Be Just Awful
Outside of Sorcerer, there isn’t really any compelling reason to use most of these poison spells. The Draconic options all work for a variety of damage types, and the only Poison exclusive effects to escape D tier or lower is Infestation, a cantrip I’m positive plenty of sheets are better off without.
Still, if you have dreams of slaying enemies with toxic rays, there are just enough options here that a low level Sorcerer can probably pull it off. It won’t be particularly powerful, but you can definitely suffocate enemies in clouds of death and puff poison into their lungs with Poison Spray. Perhaps we’re in need of a small expansion of poison spells!
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