Every Touch Spell Ranked in D&D 5e
by Sam West, Twitter:@CrierKobold
Looking for touch-ranged spells to get close and personal with the baddies? Look no further! Here, you’ll find every range of Touch spell currently in D&D 5e and a comprehensive ranking of each!
One quick note: familiars can deliver range touch spells, which radically affects their viability. The ranking will reflect their overall usability without familiars, but all of them should be bumped up a bit in your head if you can pair them with an imp or raven.
All Spells with Range Touch By Level
Artificer Spells with Range Touch
| Spell Level | Spells |
|---|---|
| Cantrip | Guidance, Light, Magic Stone, Mending, Resistance |
| 1st | Cure Wounds, Identify, Jump, Longstrider, Snare |
| 2nd | Arcane Lock, Continual Flame, Darkvision, Enhance Ability, Invisibility, Lesser Restoration, Magic Weapon, Protection from Poison, Rope Trick, Spider Climb |
| 3rd | Elemental Weapon, Flame Arrows, Fly, Glyph of Warding, Protection from Energy, Revivify, Tiny Servant |
| 4th | Freedom of Movement, Secret Chest, Stone Shape, Stoneskin |
| 5th | Create Spelljamming Helm, Greater Restoration, Skill Empowerment |
Bard Spells with Range Touch
| Spell Level | Spells |
|---|---|
| Cantrip | Light, Mending |
| 1st | Cure Wounds, Distort Value, Heroism, Identify, Illusory Script, Longstrider |
| 2nd | Enhance Ability, Invisibility, Lesser Restoration |
| 3rd | Bestow Curse, Feign Death, Glyph of Warding, Nondetection, Tongues |
| 4th | Freedom of Movement, Greater Invisibility |
| 5th | Awaken, Greater Restoration, Raise Dead, Skill Empowerment |
| 6th | Guards and Wards, True Seeing |
| 7th | Regenerate, Resurrection, Symbol |
| 8th | Mind Blank |
| 9th | Foresight, Power Word Heal |
Cleric Spells with Range Touch
| Spell Level | Spells |
|---|---|
| Cantrip | Guidance, Light, Mending, Resistance, Spare the Dying |
| 1st | Ceremony, Cure Wounds, Inflict Wounds, Protection from Evil and Good |
| 2nd | Continual Flame, Gentle Repose, Lesser Restoration, Protection from Poison |
| 3rd | Bestow Curse, Feign Death, Glyph of Warding, Meld into Stone, Protection from Energy, Remove Curse, Revivify, Tongues |
| 4th | Death Ward, Freedom of Movement, Stone Shape |
| 5th | Contagion, Greater Restoration, Hallow, Holy Weapon, Raise Dead |
| 6th | Forbiddance, True Seeing |
| 7th | Plane Shift, Regenerate, Resurrection, Symbol |
| 8th | - |
| 9th | Power Word Heal, True Resurrection |
Druid Spells with Range Touch
| Spell Level | Spells |
|---|---|
| Cantrip | Guidance, Magic Stone, Mending, Resistance, Shillelagh |
| 1st | Beast Bond, Cure Wounds, Goodberry, Jump, Longstrider, Protection from Evil and Good, Snare |
| 2nd | Barkskin, Beast Sense, Continual Flame, Darkvision, Enhance Ability, Lesser Restoration, Protection from Poison |
| 3rd | Elemental Weapon, Feign Death, Flame Arrows, Meld into Stone, Protection from Energy, Revivify |
| 4th | Freedom of Movement, Stone Shape, Stoneskin |
| 5th | Awaken, Contagion, Greater Restoration, Reincarnate |
| 6th | Druid Grove |
| 7th | Plane Shift, Regenerate, Symbol |
| 8th | - |
| 9th | Foresight, True Resurrection |
Paladin Spells with Range Touch
| Spell Level | Spells |
|---|---|
| 1st | Ceremony, Cure Wounds, Heroism, Protection from Evil and Good |
| 2nd | Gentle Repose, Lesser Restoration, Magic Weapon, Protection from Poison, Warding Bond |
| 3rd | Elemental Weapon, Remove Curse, Revivify |
| 4th | Death Ward |
| 5th | Holy Weapon, Raise Dead |
Ranger Spells with Range Touch
| Spell Level | Spells |
|---|---|
| 1st | Beast Bond, Cure Wounds, Goodberry, Jump, Longstrider, Snare |
| 2nd | Barkskin, Beast Sense, Darkvision, Enhance Ability, Lesser Restoration, Magic Weapon, Protection from Poison |
| 3rd | Elemental Weapon, Flame Arrows, Meld into Stone, Nondetection, Protection from Energy, Revivify |
| 4th | Freedom of Movement, Stoneskin |
| 5th | Greater Restoration, Swift Quiver |
Sorcerer Spells with Range Touch
| Spell Level | Spells |
|---|---|
| Cantrip | Light, Mending, Shocking Grasp |
| 1st | Distort Value, Jump, Mage Armor |
| 2nd | Darkvision, Dragon’s Breath, Enhance Ability, Invisibility, Magic Weapon, Spider Climb |
| 3rd | Flame Arrows, Fly, Gaseous Form, Protection from Energy, Tongues |
| 4th | Greater Invisibility, Stoneskin |
| 5th | Skill Empowerment |
| 6th | True Seeing |
| 7th | Plane Shift |
| 8th | - |
| 9th | - |
Warlock Spells with Range Touch
| Spell Level | Spells |
|---|---|
| Cantrip | Magic Stone |
| 1st | Distort Value, Illusory Script, Protection from Evil and Good |
| 2nd | Flock of Familiars, Invisibility, Spider Climb |
| 3rd | Fly, Gaseous Form, Remove Curse, Tongues |
| 4th | - |
| 5th | - |
| 6th | True Seeing |
| 7th | Plane Shift |
| 8th | - |
| 9th | Foresight |
Wizard Spells with Range Touch
Every Touch Spell Ranked
F: Near Uncastable/Nonfunctional
88. Create Spelljamming Helm: Even in Spelljammer, this is a joke of a spell used to pad out a book’s length with an extra “spell”. There’s no process, no magic to it. You spend gold and get a helm. It's a scam, not a spell.
87. Distort Value: Bartering is a tried and true element of D&D, even if the outcome is largely pointless. Distort Value only exists to play in that realm, and is providing an effect entirely obtainable within the realm of the mundane. It serves no purpose at any table.
86. Instant Summons: You’re paying thousands of gold for the potential to teleport an item you’ve prepped into your hand. If anyone is interacting with that item when you go to shatter the gem, whoops! It does nothing at all!
A truly, truly, truly horrendous spell.
85. Mind Blank: Want to know what’s bad deal? Spending an 8th-level spell on an effect that negates a handful of awful spells only. Psychic damage is one of the rarest damage types, meaning immunity to it barely matters, and every other line of text here isn’t close to being worth an 8th-level spell slot.
84. Beast Bond: The funniest part of Beast Bond is how Summon Beast and the updated ranger’s Primal Companion are both too smart to benefit from Beast Bond.
Fortunately, that doesn’t matter, because even if this could work on them, the benefits it conveys is limited to granting it advantage on attack rolls… against creatures adjacent to you. It takes concentration. You have to actively be in danger to get any benefit from this, and it ends early as a result of you being in danger. This spell is truly, truly uncastable.
83. Contagion: Contagion is a spell majorly hampered by its range. Even in the window where you manage to touch a creature, it only suffers the poison condition for three rounds- if it's immune to the poison condition (which many, many monsters are) this does stone nothing!
After a minimum of three rounds, it might have a cooler effect, but by that point, you’ve spent a 5th level slot on a 1st level spell worth of effect and have gotten insanely lucky. That all comes together to mark it as nonfunctional to me!
82. Arcanist’s Magic Aura: Not only is Arcanist’s Magic Aura typically textless for players, as there is next to no reason to emit a false aura or mask a creature, but it’s miserable as a player to play against, as your DM actively lies to you and gets to justify it with this spell’s existence.
This effect leads to more drama than it is worth. It certainly doesn’t help that it's worth very little.
81. Bestow Curse: Bestow Curse has the potential to be interesting, like Contagion. The costs are just way too high for its level, and its range debilitates what its capable of.
You’re putting yourself in a bad position for an effect that’s on par or worse than many ranged 1st-level save or dies. No thank you!
80. Nondetection: I don’t want to play in a game where Nondetection is a reasonable spell to cast. That usually means you need to put it on everyone, which is a massive spell tax, and the outcome is entirely obscured as all it does is prevent outside forces from using niche divination tools to watch you. There’s no feedback, no tangible benefit. For all you know, you’re lighting 25 gold on fire each out of paranoia.
Even in the hands of the DM I hate this thing, as it invalidates the already crappy divining tools players might want to use to strategize. Fortunately, most tables will play in a way where this does nothing, so you’re probably never going to have to experience it.
79. Resistance: This may be my most controversial F, but Resistance, as of the original 5th Edition PHB, is horrendous. It takes your concentration, a known cantrip, and will rarely benefit any character with a boon to a saving throw.
Its best use case is sticking it on somebody and steering them into an area you know is trapped to help them mitigate the damage. Every other time, I’d rather have one of a dozen other concentration effects up to mitigate the effects of the saves I’m expecting.78. Snare: If this was created as bonus rules for crafting Snares anyone could work with, I’d be happy enough with that. It's not. It costs spell slots and rarely will result in practical benefits. It eats your rope forever, and has a chance to hoist a single small enemy into the air should it step exactly on one space.
While it isn’t the worst spell to ever exist, it sure tricks too many people into putting it on a sheet, then failing wildly to ever deliver on its promise because of its clunky setup time and akward effect in practice.
77. Feign Death: Pretending to be dead doesn’t cost any spell slots. This stops your heart- huzzah! The price on this is way too high for mimicking what can be done with the mundane, and you have to bend over backward to incorporate this into a scheme.
There are dozens of cheaper or free ways to get effects that’ll contribute to the few problems this could help solve, and all of those tools can solve a wider range of problems, too.
76. Secret Chest: If I have extradimensional storage, I don’t want it to have a chance to be lost to the astral sea forever. It's expensive to use, easy to pilfer, and not actually that helpful compared to mundane storage. The juice isn’t worth the squeeze.
75. Gentle Repose: There are a thousand logistical problems with Gentle Repose; you have to prepare it over another spell for starters, and its only job is to get cast should somebody die to preserve their body for a Revivify. You can’t cast it as a ritual then, though, as Revivify needs the target to have died in the last minute, meaning you also need to bank a spell slot to have the opportunity to preserve a dead person for a Revivify later in the case where they die.
All of that can be navigated around easily by preparing a level spell that helps prevent a character from dying outright and using the slot to keep them alive. It is never worth preparing it, nor is it ever worth spending a slot on. If you get to the point where it does something, something has gone horribly, horribly wrong.
D: Most Sheets Don’t Want These
74. Continual Flame: Continual Flame isn’t a spell anyone really ever needs, but it is nifty at least. A permanent fire isn’t all that useful when stacked against the ample and mundane access to temporary fire the game has, but if you enjoy the permanence, its pretty harmless to invest in should known or prepared spells not be an issue.
73. Protection from Poison: One damage type resistance isn’t usually something I want, and advantage on saves against one condition isn’t that much better. In niche scenarios I’d prepare this, but that’s going to be a few times per campaign, and most of the time you don’t want this on your sheet because it doesn’t do anything.
72. Skill Empowerment: 5th level slots are too expensive for Expertise. Skills are gated in the realm of the mundane typically; there are limits to what a mundane person can express with an Acrobatics or Stealth check. Other spells provide tools that circumnavigate needs for skills altogether, and by 9th level you’ll have no shortage of those options available.
Another issue comes in with duration and total instances where you’ll use the skill more than once or twice. The most common instances where that occurs are social encounters. I’d expect a bard to have Expertise in that already, and Sorcerers don’t have room in their spells known, leaving this as a tool for Wizards to give to other charismatic characters, which can come up, but isn’t particularly impressive.
71.. Illusory Script: The ritual tag saves this from F tier, as it's fairly harmless to get in a spellbook. The issue is getting to do something useful is incredibly hard. Conveying secret messages sounds epic in a grand espionage game- the issue is that’s not what D&D tends to be about, leaving this as a funny way to make fun of an NPC or leave behind rude messages and not much more.
70. Beast Sense: You have to jump through a lot of hoops to approximate what familiars can do for free; the ritual tag makes this a lot more appealing for druids, but I wouldn’t expect to regularly find times this works if you’re not providing your own beast.
Even when you are using a beast you create, it's still not great, but a fine extra tool in the toolbelt you’ll use a handful of times per campaign effectively.
69. Clone: While it gets points for the “cool” factor, Clone is a villain tool first and foremost, and a 2nd-rate reviving spell beyond that. If you’ve got a spare spell to learn and the gold, you might as well make a backup, but I don’t see this as a necessary tool in the average adventuring group when so many cheaper resurrection effects exist, especially when you consider the setup time to get this rolling.
68. Forbiddance: The ritual tag helps Forbiddance a lot, but ultimately this effect is too narrow to find regular use for. It only affects specific creature types and requires a lot of setup to get working. Against creatures other than celestials, elementals, fey, fiends, or undead, this does nothing, even if you successfully set it up.
Adventures also tend to be the aggressors- you’re moving through dungeons and the world, not fortifying a set location. You’ll prepare this at most once in an average campaign where it could be decent, but usually, this isn’t going to find a home on your prepared spell list.
67. Resurrection: Resurrection is an upgrade to Raise Dead that you’ll use in its place once you get to level 13. You get a larger window of dead time. That’s not normally that big of a concern.
66. True Resurrection: True Resurrection goes one step further for time to revive the creature and removes the penalties for coming back to life, all without needing a body. It's the next step up that you’ll prepare during a long rest after somebody dies, and you’ll usually avoid preparing this before adventuring.
65. Regenerate: Regenerate represents a lot of hit points. Its cast time limits to purely out-of-combat healing, though, and a lot of tables just don’t need the 600 hit points it offers. If you’re really going through a meat grinder and have a barbarian taking hundreds of damage over and over again, it can find a home, but I doubt an average table benefits from it enough for its cost.
64. Power Word Heal: 9th-level spells need to have a massive, splashy impact. Returning a creature to maximum hit points sounds the part, but in context, is a terrible deal. Mass Heal doesn’t require touch and will bring multiple 200-hit-point creatures back to full for the same action type and spell slot.
The only upside this offers is condition removal, meaning in very niche scenarios, this both gets a buddy from 0 to full and cures their paralysis, making it reasonable. Most of the time, you’ll much prefer Mass Heal.
63. Guards and Wards: Spells that guard a space are challenging to set up. Guards and Wards takes it to another level of challenge, as it requires you to walk around a massive space freely to get the defenses up. Where some other effects with similar text work in enemy territory, Guards and Wards rarely is going to be castable where you’re adventuring, and even if you do cast it the effects aren’t particularly threatening.
If you’re planning for your base to be invaded, sure, it can find a home in your spellbook, but I’d otherwise avoid putting it on your sheet.
62. Darkvision: Species get darkvision natively, and torches produce light to let you see. You don’t want to spend spell slots getting this ability if you can possibly help it. If you’re the only person who can’t see in the dark in your party, you might consider this in the mid-tiers as a cost you pay for stealth, but that’s a rare exception where most tables won’t be at.
61. Sequester: There is an epic movie plot out there that uses Sequester to hide a McGuffin or a person wanted by the law. D&D isn’t usually that movie, and a 7th level slot is way too expensive for this effect.
It has fun world-building applications, but I wouldn’t expect an average character sheet to ever find a lot of value from Sequester.
60. Tongues: Being able to break down language barriers isn’t all that handy when Common is the default langauge everything tends to speak. In games where large cultural differences are a major component of gameplay, I can see Tongues having some value.
Usually Comprehend Languages gives you as much as you need when it comes to multi-lingual tables.
59. Greater Restoration: Greater Restoration is just too niche to regularly want. Two of the four effects I wouldn’t expect to ever see, one cures petrified or charmed creatures, and the final effect is redundant with Remove Curse.
This leaves it as an effect you’ll want for narrow effects that note it as a way to end an effect, or as a countermeasure to exhaustion costs. None of this comes up frequently enough where you should learn this. Instead, its the kind of effect you just prepare when you need it, which is almost never.
58. Enhance Ability: With almost all of this text reading “Advantage on X checks”, you need to want that ability to want this spell. Here’s the problem with that: ability checks benefit from the help action… which grants advantage in the same way. They don’t stack.
This leaves Enhance Ability as a lone-wolf-style spell you’ll want for solo missions, and even in that window, I’m skeptical that you’re getting a 2nd level slot’s worth of value out of it.
57. Warding Bond: There are a lot of things right with Warding Bond- no concentration, decent duration, a bonus to AC- but the reality in play is that it’s not doing enough to justify the slot most of the time.
It's at its best when a thicker back-liner, like a cleric, wards a front-line character to help leverage the extra hit point pools, but then the cleric suddenly is in much more danger and usually is the last character you want to go down. In practice it's clunky, and while not uncastable, definitely hard to get use out of without it horribly backfiring.
56. Cure Wounds: Cure Wounds is the worst of the 1st level healing options in the game. The mechanical difference between being at 1 hit point and 6 or 7 is incredibly low, as most attacks will still drop the character with more hit points back to zero- what matters is the character went from dying and unconscious to stable and conscious.
If you have zero other options for healing in your class or spells, it is valuable to have a way to get an ally from zero to consciousness. Otherwise, literally every other healing option in the game will do this spell’s job with better action efficiency, and usually at a better range or lower cost.
51. Jump: I want to love Jump, I really do, but the Jump rules hamper its abilities majorly, as you need a high speed to get any value from this outright. Characters with high speeds normally aren’t struggling to jump or fly, and past 2nd level there are tons of effective methods for navigating three-dimensional space that are way less work to use that get you further and higher than jump ever can.
55. Flame Arrows: A 3rd level spell slot for, at most, 12d6 fire damage is a bad deal, and that’s not even guaranteed. You don’t want to concentrate on this, rarely are putting this on your own weapons, and have far more efficient ways to dish out fire damage on the majority of characters that get this. Hunter's Mark is a 1st level spell that gives you unlimited bonus d6s for the same duration or longer.
54. Light: While it's basically a glorified torch, Light has a bit more utility in its unlimited nature and its ability to work without air. I rate all of the “cosmetic” cantrips higher than this, but it still is a cute light effect you can make different colors that serve a niche purpose at some tables.
53. Mending: This is a D that isn’t because it's universally weak, but rather universally narrow. Most games aren’t in the market dealing with the logistics of long-term maintenance of their traveling equipment or vessels. If you are at that table, though, Mending states you can automatically fix most things given the time, which can be invaluable and give your character a strong position in the crew.
I wouldn’t expect that to be more than a handful of tables out there, though, and every other table will find it's basically a cosmetic cantrip you use to denote yourself as somebody who excels at fixing stuff. It might come up a couple of times per campaign, but I wouldn’t expect it to be that valuable.
52. Shocking Grasp: This both is a low range and low damage cantrip. Conceptually, this gives you a “free” disengage on hit, but I don’t think you’re regularly happy with that exchange over just disengaging and having a better cantrip you can use out of combat or for higher damage or at a safer range.
51. Stoneskin: Resistance to damage stapled to concentration is a recipe for disaster. You’ll usually want to put this on a character that’s intending to take damage, and that character usually is sturdy enough that they won’t need this.
A 4th level slot and your concentration to make a tanky character thicker isn’t where I want to be. I want concentration put on something to help end encounters faster, not extend them.
50. Meld into Stone: It’s a cute trick, but hard to practically get a lot of value out of. D&D is a team-based activity, and Meld into Stone is a solitary defensive tactic to avoid death. Most adventures won’t present any opportunities for it to shine, and in the ones that do, there are way cheaper ways to disappear when you need to.
49. Remove Curse: Remove Curse is an effect you prepare when you need it, making it a fine cleric and paladin spell, and a pretty terrible warlock and wizard spell. The funniest part about it to me is it doesn’t even remove curses from magic items, instead letting a character break attunement to it, making it pretty bad at its primary job.
48. Lesser Restoration: I don’t want to ever find myself in a position where the best use of my 2nd level slot is spending an action to remove a non-paralyzing condition that usually will end with a successful save after a round or two. If I’m going into a situation where I know there’s going to be paralysis maybe I prepare this, but even then the action cost is steep when I could prioritize dealing with the source of the paralysis.
47. Barkskin: One character type pulls Barkskin out of F territory, and that’s Circle of the Moon druids, specifically when somebody else casts this on them. An AC of 16 isn’t anything to write home about- most characters get that AC or better with just armor. Needing to spend a 2nd level slot on it isn’t where the majority of characters ever want to be, especially when self-casting.
46. Elemental Weapon: 3rd level slots are too high for this effect. Divine Favor offers the same damage buff at a much cheaper rate, and the magic weapon property by 5th, 6th, and 7th level shouldn’t be a factor. A d4 damage on hit for a 3rd-level slot is a bad rate.
45. Magic Weapon: The bulk of the text Magic Weapon provides is “Your weapon becomes magical”, meaning it overcomes non-magical weapon resistances. That binary isn’t particularly fun to engage with, and most characters are expecting to get tools to let them bypass that resistance anyway, making this effect fairly moot.
It also doesn’t help that concentration limits this to spellcasters wanting to buff their martial allies, as martial characters that are going to take hits will not find a lot of success keeping it up over multiple rounds.
44. Freedom of Movement: If you’re ever in a position where Freedom of Movement matters, you are happy to cast it. How often you’re happy to cast it varies table to table, but I’d guess most of the time, you’re not going to need this.
When it matters usually is when you’re trying to avoid paralysis or restraints. Spending actions to end that condition is great. I think you’re just not getting this benefit often enough to justify taking it most of the time.
C: Perfectly Fine Spell for Most Sheets
43. Spare the Dying: Medicine checks usually replace any need for this effect. If character death is something you want closer to no risk of, this is a fine 3rd or 4th cantrip to pick up, especially given how limited Cleric’s spell list is.
42. Hallow: I adore these kinds of defensive spells you set up to target specific enemies. In practice, most adventurers aren’t in the market to defend a keep or lock down a chapel, instead usually being the aggressors breaking into dungeons to thwart enemy rituals or steal back treasures.
Hallow has a lot of awesome effects. Practically setting it up to get creatures affected by it will be the determining factor as to whether or not it's good on your sheet. That largely depends on the table.
41. Druid Grove: Grove Guardians may be the most powerful area-based spell printed to date; the problem is this still is a spell that asks you to set up a space and goad enemies into fighting in it. It combines to be a potent effect for a 6th-level slot; it's just limited to a 90 ft. cube. Getting an encounter in the cube is going to be most of the work in getting this spell to perform well.
40. Gift of Alacrity: I don’t rate initiative bonuses super highly, but in the upper tiers, this is dirt cheap to put on a few members of the party. Passive boons that empower your combat options that cost no action in the actual fight tend to be great, and this hits the mark there should the 1st level cost not be a concern.
39. Symbol: What sets Symbol slightly above Hallow and Druid Grove is its set-up time; I can regularly see there being short windows to set this up prior to a fight in enemy territory, whereas the other two require you goad creatures into a safer space you’ve set up ahead of time.
The payoffs aren’t as powerful for the cost, though. A 7th-level slot is a tall order, and while I do love making a symbol of hopelessness thematically, the effects being symmetrical make it tough to place. There is awesome potential, but it's still challenging to set up.
38. Raise Dead: Costs aside, Raise Dead is a 5th-level blanket solution to character death. There are cheaper ways to do this, though, which is why this isn’t particularly high on my radar. You’ll prepare it when you need it, and the punishment for coming back to life will hurt.
37. Reincarnate: I rate this slightly higher than Raise Dead because it's chaotic! It adds an element of permanence to death, as your species changes upon rebirth. Some people hate this, which I also can get. Still, it's a rebirth effect for a 5th-level slot. You’ll cast it when you need it.
36. Longstrider: What saves Longstrider from D-tier is how cheap it is. A 1st level slot is chump change for upper-tier characters, and Longstrider has a long duration and reasonable buff with no concentration requirement.
If you’ve got slots to burn, why not give a couple of characters +10 speed? Early on, though, I’d stay far away from this effect as your 1st level slots in the lower tiers are worth more than +10 speed.
35. True Seeing: I hate the binary problem/solution spell and effects in this game. True Seeing is a binary solution to a handful of problems. Those problems are a pain in the butt, granted, but its cost is a bit steep for this, as are actual applications for it.
Seeing in magical darkness takes this from D to C tier to me, as that is an actionable “combo” you can assemble with your Devil’s Sight warlock buddy to turn this into a combat advantage while also detecting illusions and shapechangers.
34. Stone Shape: Personally, I have found these Fabricate-like effects challenging to use. They reward creativity, but are far more restrictive than illusion spells tend to be. This doubling as a stone Passwall does raise its value to me, and I can imagine a handful of useful enough purposes that it can justify a home on some sheets.
33. Arcane Lock: I’ve come up a lot on Arcane Lock, but not so much I think most characters are happy to take it. Magically barricading a door has a lot of uses in and out of combat. Battle maps are often messy, especially in dungeons, and you can use it in a pinch to cut off forces and waste their turns trying to get through your lock in some situations.
Out of combat, it helps thieving as much as it works against it, as you can lock unsuspecting people in bathrooms, closets, or wherever else they end up. The tool is still narrow, but I think you’ll find enough uses per campaign to pick it up if the fantasy appeals to you.
32. Spider Climb: It's hard to get excited about Spider Climb these days- there are plenty of tools to navigate three-dimensional space, and this one requires you touch walls to move around. I still am happy to plant around with it, as the cost is pretty cheap, but I don’t think most sheets ever will feel like they need Spider Climb.
31. Plane Shift: For games running planar travel, Plane Shift is handy. It gives the party a default way to navigate the planes stapled to an escape button in case of emergency.
It has the splashiness I want my 7th-level slots to have, and leads to cool moments where you ready an action to cast this once everyone links hands in the last moments of a losing fight.
30. Foresight: 9th-level slots need to do a lot to justify the cast. In practice, I don’t think Foresight is adding that much to a wizard, meaning its usually going to be aimed at a character planning on benefitting from making three or more attacks a round with advantage.
The thing is, advantage on a bunch of attacks isn’t that hard to get, either. Advantage on saves is useful on everyone, and doubly so on the martial characters that lack Counterspell or other spell denial effects, but I’m often going to want a spell with a singularly powerful effect for my 9th-level slot. I don’t think Foresight meets that bar, but it’ll be fine on plenty of sheets.
29. Protection from Energy: This is a spell I want on my bonus spells prepared sheet; when it comes up, its a massive boon, and if I know to prepare it ahead of time it’ll be excellent, but I’m not going to regularly prepare it as most encounters aren’t going to involve the damage types it defends against.
Getting it for free, though, will give you a great silver bullet in your back pocket for spontaneous bouts with lightning elementals or whatever other magic forces pop up.
28. Rope Trick: Creating extra-dimensional space you’d think would rate higher, but in practice Rope Trick is usually just fine. Using it effectively requires stealth to be a priority, and it's not going to be as efficient, nor effective, as plenty of other stealth tools.
It still is a fun toy to play around with, though, and it has some neat applications in climbing vertically as well as offering shelter in an invisible hole.
27. Identify: Ritual spells are a breeze to use, and Identify is a prime example. You rarely want to spend slots on this, but if you’re scared of attuning to something to learn about it, Identify can clue you into what it's about.
26. Gaseous Form: Gaseous Form is an odd duck of a spell; undoubtedly this thing has huge potential for exploring environments and sneaking around dungeons. The problem lies in you losing all access to, you know, being physical.
The trade-off is often worth it. This spell is a great tool in a thief or spy’s toolbelt. Adventurers are pretty close to those job descriptions, so it’ll probably be a fine addition to some sheets.
25. Flock of Familiars: Going from no familiars to one is a huge jump in power; more than that has diminishing returns, and Flock of Familiars encapsulates that idea I think.
If Find Familiar didn’t exist this spell would rank a lot higher, as three familiars can do a lot of useful stuff. They just aren’t usually doing all that much more stuff than a single familiar could do, and this actually costs you spell slots to use.
24. Mage Armor: If you’re a Wizard, this likely is how you determine your AC past 3rd level. Prior to that, or on Sorcerer, there are a lot higher trade-offs you’ll want to consider, as all Mage Armor offers is “decent” AC for most characters. You usually can find that elsewhere.
23. Heroism: I always want to find room for Heroism and it never seems to make the cut. All of the words add together to be an effect that’s fine enough in grindy encounters, and excellent in encounters with frightening threats.
What you take over it, though, and when exactly you want to cast it can be murky, making it a fine option I think, but not usually a high priority.
22. Inflict Wounds: Inflict Wounds is a chunk of short-ranged damage for a 1st level spell slot. It's never going to be the most powerful spell cast, but in the low tiers, it sure does feel great to slap something for a bunch of necrotic damage.
B: Great on a Lot of Sheets
21. Create Homunculus: 6th-level slots are expensive; fortunately, you only cast this once, then have a permanent buddy should you manage to keep it alive!
It's funny to me that this effect is priced at 6th level when Find Familiar is a 1st-level slot for a very similar effect. Still, I’m happy to pick this up and trade a few hit points for an extra servant who delivers potions and unlocks windows for me.
20. Shillelagh: While it doesn’t scale that well without Extra Attack, Shillelagh still has the highest low-tier damage potential out of all the cantrips as it lets you add your Wisdom modifier to your druid’s weapon attack rolls. Being a high-damage cantrip, even at low range, elevates this to top of the cantrip list to me.
19. Magic Stone: Like Shillelagh, Magic Stone adds your spellcasting modifier to hit. Unlike Shillelagh, it doesn’t have as limited range requirements.
This is one of the best low-tier cantrips in the game for druids to me.
18. Immovable Object: I’ve always been a sucker for an Immovable Rod; Immovable Object has similar utility, but doesn’t require a specific item! It always surprises me in its utility, and it's a spell I think every group will easily regularly cast.
17. Ceremony: There are so many little boons Ceremony offers I’m amazed I don’t see it more. It asks a ton of small fun questions- when does each character want their Coming of Age ritual for a bonus d4 to every ability check they make for a day? Who all wants to get married for a week’s worth of +2 AC? How about adding a d4 to every saving throw for a day in exchange for dedication to your god’s service?
The floor on it makes Holy Water, which is a handy low-tier item to get, and the ritual tag basically makes it free to produce as long as you can keep fronting the gold costs.
16. Dragon’s Breath: Dragon’s Breath earns this distinct badge of honor, as usually the “You get a new action for 1 minute” spells have been terrible. Dragon’s Breath turns your action in the low tiers into Burning Hands while also giving you the first cast the turn you use it.
The low tiers are where resource efficiency matters most. Having a 2nd level slot give you actions for an entire encounter you’re actively excited to use is a great deal.
15. Tiny Servant: There are tons of things to be done with Tiny Servants- like Create Homunculus, there are a ton of things that you can do with these even in combat that improve the party's odds of success.
What this spell has over Create Homunculus is its level cost and quantity you can make. There are diminishing returns on extra summoned hands that mainly take the Use and Object action, but if you want a Beauty and the Beast experience, Tiny Servant has your back.
14. Fly: While demonstrably worse than editions of old, Fly still is a great world exploration tool a lot of wizards are happy to stick in their book. Flight offers tons of problem-solving potential- from hovering over traps and pits to scaling a building and entering a high window.
D&D is full of problems flight can help solve, and while a 3rd level slot isn’t the cheapest, it’s still cheap enough I think it's worth using.
13. Holy Weapon: This is what it takes for a weapon-empowering spell to be worth it- not only does Holy Weapon massively improve a weapon’s on-hit damage, it modally can burst into an explosion of blinding damage.
You do want to get a few rounds of attacks in to justify its cast, and the worst-case scenario still is disastrous, making this a lot tougher of a sell to use as a paladin enchanting their own weapon. The best case is genuinely great, though, and the bonus decision-making points definitely is a major point in its favor.
12. Swiftquiver: It dodges A tier only because so many Rangers have great places to put their bonus action already. Beast Master and Drakewarden both use a bonus action to command their pet, and many other builds want Crossbow Expert, automatically reducing this option's relative efficiency.
Builds without a dedicated bonus action, like Hunter or Gloom Stalker, can find Swiftquiver acts as two extra attacks in the upper tiers which can be a welcome addition to your sheet.
11. Protection from Evil and Good: I’m routinely happy to have this on my sheet. It isn’t a great effect in every encounter, but for a 1st level slot it is going to come up multiple times per campaign, often in encounters where the debilitating effects would cripple your party. A 1st level answer to a ghost’s possession or a terrifying aberration is something I think most groups can benefit from.
10. Death Ward: The actual effect Death Ward offers is discreet, but invaluable. Getting somebody conscious from unconscious is great and all, but if you can prevent them going down outright they’re more likely to never waste any actions, and Death Ward doesn’t cost you any actions in a fight.
It gets bonus points on higher-level characters where the slot cost feels less restrictive and on the pair of warlock options that get access to it, as casting it with short rest slots offers cheese potential where you just extend a long rest by an hour to set up a few for free.
A: Every Sheet is Likely Better With This On It
9. Create Magen: Creatable allies are usually excellent; Create Magen is no exception and has the massive upside of having no concentration requirement. The real cost is hit points, but it's a fairly small cost to get permanent powerful allies under your control, and you’re close enough to Wish when you pick this up that I’m not too bothered by the permanence.
The upside is massive. Create Magen is a house of a spell.
8. Glyph of Warding: There is a lot of cheese potential with Glyph of Warding that elevates it past all of the other “defend a space” spells below. Critically, this can act as a way to double up long-duration concentration effects with preparation, which has a huge impact on some adventures.
If you have a spare slot or two at the end of one adventure, you can spend a couple of hours before resting on this to get a free hour of Fly or similar long-duration effects without devoting concentration to it.Used “fairly” to defend spaces, it's quite bad. Used as a tool to double up other spell effects makes it nasty good.
7. Guidance: How Guidance is run will vary from table to table, but often it equates to +1d4 on every out-of-combat ability check. That’s an enormous boon.
Even at tables running it more restrictively, few effects stack with advantage. Having a way to improve skill checks beyond just the help action is fantastic. Every table benefits from at least one character having Guidance.
6. Awaken: This might be a bit overrated, but I love Awaken. Building an extra party member with intelligence baked in is undoubtedly useful, too. Awaken a tree for an ent ally, or make a hyper-intelligent frog to do your taxes.
5. Revivify: Revivify is why every spell that raises the dead is so low on this list; a 3rd level slot to get a dead person back to life is a steal. You’re usually in a position to revive a dead ally Around 7th or 8th level by just banking a slot. It makes death a lot less scary and changes how the DM can run death from here on out.
4. Greater Invisibility: The difference between an hour and a minute is huge, as is the jump from 2nd to 4th level when compared to its lesser form. Still, a minute of invisibility that works in combat is fantastic, especially on characters making tons of attack rolls. Now, all of those have advantage, and all attack rolls against them have disadvantage, plus it can still do a good impression of Invisibility for parts of stealth missions.
3. Goodberry: I’ve come a long way on Goodberry- I’m now at the point where I think it should be the default healing tool every party wants over Healing Word. It's so easy to bank huge amounts of these, and 1 hit point is the difference between consciousness and unconsciousness.
Add in the fact that familiars and summons can deliver these to unconscious creatures (which Druids now get access to in spades thanks to Wild Companion) and you’re left with an unbelievably efficient healing tool that usually costs you yesterday’s spell slots.
2. Invisibility: I can’t think of the last game I’ve played in without Invisibility on at least somebody's sheet, and for good reason. It comes into play on a huge swath of character sheets as early as 3rd level and fundamentally changes how stealth works for the rest of time.
1. Simulacrum: Taking the top spot is a spell that breaks every element of the game in half; you create duplicate characters with all of the relevant abilities those characters have for a 7th-level slot that lasts forever (or until destroyed).
Sure, they can’t regain spell slots, but at minimum duplicating yourself grants you double the spell slots for a single 7th-level slot you can rest to immediately recoup. It's fundamentally broken, and absolutely worth the top spot.
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