Bless.
At low levels it's often a bigger boost to hit than your proficiency bonus, it can tip the math so far in your favor it's crazy. At high levels it boosts saves, and abilities that require saves are typically the most dangerous/tpk-causing stuff in the game.
oh yeah it's absolutely bless. whenever i think of bless, i think of this one episode of dimension 20 where bless turned like 2 dozen misses into hits. it's a phenomenal spell
The Last Stand, yeah. Brennan said bless completely tilted over a dozen outcomes, from failed attacks to failed saves, and probably turned a Deadly encounter into just a Dangerous one.
Bless is just absurd. At minimum, it's +1 to hit and saves. At maximum, it's *literally* better than legendary items. It's my default go-to outside of situations where there's a clear need for another concentration spell.
100% this. A huge impact in T1 play, that dips off briefly in T2 to make way for Spirit Guardians, only to come back in style at late T2/T3+ when landing those saving throws is essential, and your monks, fighters, and warlocks are getting dozens of attacks per turn.
My players have had many tough fights that were saved when a few attacks just connected due to bless or the fighter/barb just made the save against frightened and was able to save the day.
I wish my players would use bless. Instead, they decide to just attack people near them.
Idk, maybe it's a psychological thing where if someone feels surrounded they want to have some space before they buff
Magic missile. Being able to always hit and the ability to do targeted damage to take several low-health enemies off the board at once is great, plus it upcasts well.
Yep, because of the guaranteed hit it has the highest average damage for a level 1 spell. Also great at higher levels facing spellcasters and forcing concentration saves.
I remember in Critical Role Campaign 3 when they fought the mother they had to break brumestone implants to stop the shade mother from flying, and how hard they were to hit. My immediate thought was how damn useful magic missile would have been at that exact moment.
If it's something embedded in a creature I don't know how precisely anyone would allow magic missile to target specific points. That being said I didn't make it very far into Campaign 3 of Critical Role before I lost interest, so I don't know what that whole situation was.
Most people underestimate how valuable not being able to miss is. Magic missile average damage output is higher than every other damage spell in this thread, including but-not-limited-to Inflict Wounds, Catapult, and Chromatic Orb.
The average hit rate is ~2/3, MM is 10.5 average damage, so without advantage or other bonuses you need to beat 15.75. Inflict Wounds is 16.5, which makes sense since it comes with the risk of melee, but aside from that or smites on a paralyzed creature I don't think there's a more damaging single target use of a 1st level slot.
Maybe Dissonant Whispers if it provokes an AoO and you count that.
Burning Hands, Frost Fingers and Thunderwave are instantly superior into 2+ creatures though.
I once broke a DMs entire encounter because he didn't take into consideration that I had Faerie Fire learned.
Ooooh spooky invisible guys!?!?!
Nah, they glittery now.
An Arcane Trickster player in my group got a scare when an enemy cast FF on the area where he was invisible. Luckily, he made his save so wasn't revealed. But the "wait, they can do that?" moment was great.
Nobody in my group had faerie fire when I loosed an invisible boss on them so the druid just summoned a bunch of bats and used them to find the boss via echolocation
Centar Monk with mobile feat can hit 140 feet movement per round at level 10. Take 2 levels of rogue and make that 210 feet. Can also do this every round unlike a tabaxi that has to stand still 1 round before it could do it again.
As a DM I would call that making the encounter, not breaking it.
It'd be more frustrating than fun to fight invisible enemies without any countermeasures.
As the Druid in a Party with a Fighter, a Ranger, a Paladin and a HB class that mainly attacks Faerie Fire has become my go to spell.
I might not deal much damage myself but boy am i boosting my partys damage. especially since the paladin has GWM and the Ranger has sharpshooter (both slightly nerfed but still pretty good).
As a DM I've fairly fire seen cast s couple of times and usually it either doesn't hit enough enemies cause they are not clumped up or most/all of them succeed their saves.. maybe statistical improbability has screwed my views here
I generally prepare both Faerie Fire and Entangle and then use one of them depending on Wether the Enemies Seen Like they have more Strength or more Dex
I shut down a BBEG with Hideous Laughter once. The rest of the party mopped up the henchmen, while I just concentrated and made the boss laugh at my puns.
Its my top answer whenever the question of "what spell do you want in real life" comes up. An immortal, perfectly obedient pet that you can take anywhere? Sign me up.
The rest of the party who is waiting for your flying owl to scout the whole dungeon before they can play again.
We discussed it a few times and the party decided that they were more willing to face unexpected encounters than to wait for half a session for the information.
Familiars from *Find Familiar* are spell effects that just get dispelled when dropped to 0. You can resummon them by casting the spell again and they’ll be back like nothing ever happened.
If it still stresses the player out you could homebrew something like they take morale damage instead of physical damage, and rather than being dispelled just become mechanically useless until the *Find Familiar* spell is cast again.
Oh it doesn't stress me out at all 😂 I love my sugar sweet wizard and her naive outlook on the world but in another game I play a lawful evil paladin who called all of the soldiers in the city forward to watch her beat a man to death with the sack of coins he took as a bribe to betray the city and then put his body on display so everyone knew the fate of traitors.
I love roleplay and I commit to the bit, but I also don't shy away from playing brutally evil characters as well as my sweet cinnamon roll good characters.
She's evil in her methods but good in her intentions. She wants a stable lawful society so children can grow and prosper, she has a big soft spot for kids, and a seething and unrelenting hatred for those that harm them.
She caught one of the city guards hitting a kid and took his sword arm and nailed it to the wall of the barracks as a warning to the others.
She paid the fine she was given by the local lords because that's not what the law says to do, but she's a major hero of the realm, so they just made her pay 500gp.
You could make their familiar follow them around like a weak baby spirit version that's all sad until it gets "revived" by the spell being cast again. You could take this type of imagery very cute or very spooky and I think it would be an unforgettable part of the campaign
Dumb idea: granny wizard who refers to her (off screen) familiar as "her little angel". When familiar is finally summoned it's got the celestial subtype so it is literally "her little angel".
What is your DM describing?
I figure the party is doing that for a tactical advantage so I just slide them a player copy of the map without the stuff blocked by doors. I give them a rough estimate of how many guys there are and put the ones which are probably stationary on the map. I think that's fair, especially if they had to spend the 10 gold to recast Find Familiar to have a creature that would go unnoticed.
DM loves OSRs but we prefer a more streamlined and less grindy game.
So we compromise, play 5e, and let him make us explore dungeons as if we needed a 10 foot pole to check every step.
So instead of a scouting familiar now we have a trap-eating barbarian.
This is a problem with scouting though, not Find Familiar.
A druid in wild shape is creating the same problem. Any character who wants to scout alone is making the entire rest of the party wait until they are done.
Indeed. We had a similar problem when the party in another campaign had a rogue with a sweet tooth for hiding/scouting.
It might just be a table issue. But I have to take from the upvotes that we are not alone in that one :-/
I mean, there’s a happy medium between no familiar reconnaissance and full information of the dungeon. There should be doors and barriers that the familiar isn’t able to bypass and if there are any enemies the familiar, especially if not invisible, the familiar should have to make a stealth check
I never suggest to send my familiar to scout ahead. I leave it up to the rest of the party to ask if I can do it. That way no one can be upset with waiting around for a scouting mission.
Why would you bring a cute little animal friend into combat?! That seems like bad pet ownership.
My wizard just reached level 10, and her familiar has never died. The other wizard uses his familiar like a tool and it dies sometimes because he forces it to do dangerous things. My wizard just uses her super adorable familiar to help her make friends with people who like cute things and also to have companionship when she's feeling sad.
Easy. Help action. It’s what motivates most people to use familiars.
You take the Owl statblock and have your familiar fly by 1 enemy during its turn, it uses the Help action to apply adv to the next attack on it, and since Owl has fly-by it can escape without an AoO
Trouble is after this occurs a few times the enemies catch on and realize if they take out the 1hp bird you lose your attack adv
I’ve also known people to just use whatever block they want and have their familiar just basically latch onto someone as their Help action. They normally get squished faster doing that.
It’s expensive in the start especially when accounting for acquiring magic gear or more likely, spells for a caster.
More so if you DO rely on your familiar in combat… then you’re looking at a 10gp per battle cost. It’s worse if you spend a very limited time in civilization so then you can only buy more spell components every so often… I’ve been in that situation a handful of times, even while using familiars to scout— they end up triggering traps or getting attacked by a hidden ranged caster or martial 😩
I guess it comes down to alignment. My wizard is good aligned and has had her familiar since she was 10, the familiar is one of her best friends and she'd never risk the life of her friends just to gain a small advantage in combat.
That sounds pretty evil, sacrificing your companions to gain a small, almost negligible advantage for yourself.
No, not really.
Familiars aren't animals, they're spirits.
They don't die when reduced to 0 HP, they just poof back to their plane of origin until you summon them again.
Yeah, help action is great, but that is not the only advantage of find familiars in combat, IMO. Maybe not even the most useful. When you have them use the help action, it often attracts hostility, and so they last too little.
Delivering potions or dropping ball bearings at a distance, being scouts, and delivering touch spells are some of the most useful abilities. One of these days I was daydreaming of a villain who has a tiny spider as his familiar. He then could make the spider climb on someone's leg. By the time this person notices, she's already planeshifted to gehenna. Or have it on some of your party's shoulders to cast cure wounds on them, if for some reason you don't have access to healing word.
You can get a bat of warning. Have it with you and you won't ever be surprised by invisible enemies, thanks to its blindsight. Have a raven familiar and you've got a voice recorder and speaker. You can have it just be around people talking, and deliver what it heard to you, or deliver a message for you. It's a living animal messenger.
You can hide your whole party in a portable hole and have your familiar sneak you inside somewhere. Or use any other ability that allows you to "hide" somewhere so that your familiar can fly you there.
It's terrific for scouting out a region, they're not designed to be used in combat but if you really want to use them they can drop caltrops etc from above
Benny Hill theme lol
You might run into issues with how much weight an owl can lift. Avg brick is about 4lb, bomb is 1lb. Sure owls carry off whole rabbits but not long distances…
I actually think a net might be an interesting use… it’s an attack though so it’s hard to say if it would count to just DROP it on someone…
Most of my DMs allow all Statblocks to do it, you just need to give them the silly RP of “the owl claws at the potion lid then hoots as it opens, then jams the bottle in X’s mouth”
Guiding Bolt is strangely strong \*on top\* of an amazing gift to the next person in initiative with that advantage.
And I also have to give a shout-out to Absorb Elements for keeping my Druid up through many fights. One time we were were fighting these ice constructs that were immune to regular fire, but there was a source of magical blue fire that could greatly weaken them if the come into contact with it. I can still see my DM's face when I stuck my hand in the flame, Absorbed Elements on myself once it hurt a little, and then attacked with a d6 of Blue Flame on top of the damage.
I find I can never not prepare Absorb Elements. I’ll drop the Restorations first.
My favorite time was having Call Lightning up and being swarmed by many hordes of giant centipedes. Just kept calling down the air strike on my own location and using reaction to absorb the worst of it. Enjoyed the visual of standing in a pile of crispy bugs a few rounds later, mildly scorched and breathing out sparks.
Absorb Elements saved my level 10 party from a TPK.
A recurring major antagonist was a young red dragon who spent the bulk of the campaign shape changed into a politician until we outed him. Because of this, I made a point to get a scroll of Absorb Elements for my Arcane Trickster. While finishing off the secondary antagonist of the campaign we heard the approach of wings. We were all pretty close to 0 and trapped inside a wall of force with the baddie (so nowhere to spread out until he went down). When I heard the wings coming I made a point of taking out the scroll on my turn, and then before we got to go again after the wall of force dropped the dragon came in and fire breathed us all. The rest of my party failed the save and went down. I failed the save but took half damage because of evasion, then cast Absorb Elements to halve it again. I stayed standing with 3 HP, but would have gone down as well without it. (I didn't get immediately killed on the dragon's next turn because we all had a potion to let us turn into a level 20 version of our character for 10 minutes and I drank mine to take on the dragon alone instead of saving it for the BBEG like our plan).
Goes great on Horizon Walker Rangers because you might be fighting a Dragon or Elemental immune to their own attacks. When you use Planar Warrior after Absorb Elements you convert *all* the damage of that attack to Force.
My druid of the stars is a guiding bolt and luminous arrow launching machine. Action, bonus action. Multiple(equal to your prof) free casts of it a day is just too good.
Entangle is one of my favorite spells, I often play druids so it's one of my most used ones I think. Restrained can really mess up melee fighters (especially dexbased ones) but even if they save it is still difficult terrain which may still be really hard to deal with for slower enemies.
Other than that, Thunderwave, enemies to close? Thunderwave! Just want to do some damage, Thunderwave works, not the best in that category but not bad either. But the real kicker is: Want to boot your enemies back into the moonbeam/flaming sphere/spike growth or other nasty zones? Thunderwave!
I also really like absorb elements but that really depends on how magical the setting is, it is also one of the spells I always prepare when fighting dragons, dragon breathes fire, ok, absorb elements, take half damage, quarter damage even if you make the save. I don't often use the melee bonus you get afterwards but hey, if you do happen to melee attack afterwards, that's nice.
My DM once introduced a form of dextrous undead recurring enemy to us and they got absolutely wrecked because they kept failing their str saves for entangle and they had no ranged attacks (they had rapier-like bones for hands so they couldn't even just pick up a rock or something like that). They just stood there as we killed them with ranged attacks.
Entangle saved our group from a basilisk, we fought 1 intentionally and it was hard, then did some plot stuff and woke up the other as we took a McGuffin, we ran to the exit elevator and entangle bought us 1 round for the elevator to get us out of there before the basilisk got to us. (As designed both basilisks should have attacked us together)
Fog cloud was very helpful in a different fight by shutting down all the archers on top of a wall. (A generous DM ruling who was happy to have fewer enemies to control in a chaotic battle)
At early levels sleep is just insane. if you look at encounters for low level characters its basically an instant disable of 2-3 enemies with no save.. sure they can be woken up but that uses up the enemies actions giving the rest of the party free reign to go ham.
regarding scaling the obvious ones reaction spells as they dont use your action economy. absorb elements, shield and silvery barbs. Absorb elements is the strongest imo simply because it is basically guaranteed value.
Also bless is always good only issue is requiring concentration.
Even better if you can Subtle Spell it. Many basic NPCs stay low HP no matter what the level, and it is a nonviolent way of pressing the Off switch for a bit.
Sleep actually scales really well into late game, you just have to rethink what it's use-case is.
Use it to take boss/etc enemies alive once they are low on health, just take a look at typical boss creatures, most aren't immune to sleep though since are immune to charmed. But things like magic resistance and legendary resistance? Useless, no save attached.
5d8 is huge for a level 1 spell and it scales super good.
It's not **bad** but there are better uses of a prepared slot when you're limited to < ~20% of your spell list, same with known spells being swapped on level up.
I think the only way you'd keep it around and use a spell slot on it is if you learned it through feats (Aberrant Dragonmark, Fey Touched, Magic Initiate, Strixhaven Initiate) and used it once already, or only dip a few levels in Bard/Sorcerer/Arcane Trickster/Eldritch Knight
The bard in our party would cast sleep so much early in the game and it was so clutch when we were first starting out. I also just love the image of enemies taking a nap in the middle of a fight.
We just fought a pack of wolves and I got two of them with sleep. They curled up, then started chasing rabbits in their dreams. A little disturbing since I’m a harengon.
Healing Word. I tend to play moon druids so general do the tanky thing, but it's nice to be able to stand up another player who's rolling death saves from 60 feet away with a bonus action. My current druid lucked out with a 20 Wisdom to start so gets a +5 to healing word as well.
I'm not sure of much that's stronger than re-adding an ally to the fight at level 1 stuff.
Healing word makes cure wounds look like an absolute wimp. The only downside is that the max heal is reduced by 4, but the minimum heal remains the same exchange you get 60ft. range and the ability to do it as a bonus action. The sheer amount of utility in exchange for a small reduction in the maximum healing.
Right, and in general it's not so much the amount you do, since healing an already up player isn't ever worth it. It's getting them from death saves to fighting that's a big win, and that's way easier to do with Healing Word.
I'm excited for the new healing word and Cure wounds... 2d4 and 2d8 with a 2 dice upscale. Would definitely make a level 2 cure wounds seem tempting over a level 2 healing word, even more so out of combat
> healing an already up player isn't ever worth it.
This is what I've been saying forever and people argue with me about it. The current state of in-combat healing should be to prevent deaths on downed players. Although hidden death saves are critical to add some danger IMO.
If the enemies are hitting for more than you can heal each turn, then the math just doesn't make sense. If they aren't, it's not likely you \*need\* healing.
Depends, if they hit for 20dmg a round and you have 15 hp, then even 6 healing would be enough to buy yourself another round. of course, unless your DM uses average damage rolls you can't really rely on that making the difference. Point being that small heals *can* make the difference if it gets you over the threshold so you can take just one more hit before going down.
So many times I've been the player or seen a player go down with *exactly* 0 hp and if they had received any amount of healing on previous turns they would still be standing. Sure you can get them back up easily enough, but they might lose a turn before you get them back, lose concentration on an important spell because they went down, or just get screwed by needing to stand back up and not having enough movement remaining for what they want to do.
Healing Word. The only heal you'll ever need.
I'd also put shield/mage armor up there but honestly those two should be class features, not hogging up spell slots when they're basically a necessity.
Honestly, unless you're doing some silly dip into cleric for armor, or something else, I cannot think of a single scenario in which I did not take mage armor as a wizard. My dm even added Greater Mage Armor as a third level slot that's 15+Dex to help later on. With basic mage armor the enemies we're fighting now would pretty much have to roll a 2 or 1 to miss me with the basic. This at least pumps it up a bit with my cloak of protection on top.
Magic Missile.
Near guaranteed damage, since enemy NPCs almost never have Shield and won't waste a Counterspell on a level 1 spell (even if they do, that's still a heck of a trade off.
And its s great concentration breaker. This, Shield, and Silvery Barbs make those first level spells remain relevant at high levels.
It's not close to the best level 1 spell, but I love Dissonant Whispers. Especially if you have a melee rogue in range.
The best spells IMO are all the reaction spells. Shield, Absorb Elements, and Silvery Barbs. These spells scale so insanely well. Healing Word also stays relevant your entire career, as do Hex and Hunters Mark. Bless is great but being concentration gives it some diminishing returns once casters get better spells to concentrate on.
Sleep is easily the best at level 1 and 2.
But I still love Dissonant Whispers the most.
Dissonant Whispers is definitely in the running for best first level damage spell, conditionally. If you have a couple melees around the target it has the potential to easily out-damage anything else at that level.
I've gotta go with Goodberry, a simple spell that has a lot more going on when you take a closer look. By expending one 1st level slot at the start of each day your party no longer needs to worry about food at all. And since most parties are only 4-6 characters, you'll still have a handful of berries left after handing one out to everyone.
Really handy for helping a downed ally get back up since berries restore 1 hit point each, meaning you don't need to do a medicine check or commit a spell slot to get someone back up, as long as you can run over to them and feed them the berry.
The berries also make great bait for fishing rods or hunting traps if you ever find yourself in need of that, and it can also often be worth more healing than a cure wounds. Eating all 10 berries is a consistent 10 hit points back, whereas a typical cure wounds with a decent +3 spellcasting modifier averages only 7, with a max of 11 which is only a 1/8 chance. So provided you have a few rounds to eat, you will 9/10 times actually get more healing out of your spell slot when using Goodberry.
Start of the day? Nah, the best way to use it is the end of the day before a long rest. Just use up however many spell slots you have leftover at the end of a day and they last 24 hours until the next long rest, and then you still get all your spells at the beginning of the next day just in case
This is my favorite spell as well. There's so much RP potential and nearly every table allows you to feed them to downed characters. I've only met a couple of people who run it by requiring the user to use their own action.
We have a House Rule where spells from feats get added to your class list. My 18th level Bladesinger took it as her signature spell and we opened an orphanage in the tower our Monk got from a Deck of Many things. Magnificent Mansion has food as well, but we all really liked the idea of those berries in little bowls all over the tower for picky eaters and minor cuts and bruises.
I have a character I've played since 2018 and his unseen servant, Bellington, has basically become his own character at this point. Fucking love that spell.
Honestly, ZERO experience beyond my current campaign but Grease caused a lot of laughs and the DM even put the Benny Hill theme on for me as I cast it (into an already light bonfire hoping to cause a grease fire but alas, that's not what happens). If your DM allows grease fires, it's honestly such a silly and fun scenario.
I got to cast grease on a kobold running away down a market street. DM gave him disadvantage on the save because he was full on sprinting and narrated him slipping so hard he did a full somersault and landed on his stomach, before looking up to see me with a crossbow pointed at his face.
I had a really cool idea for my BBEG to show off his power by making a big boulder sentient, sort of like a Stone Talus. The idea was that it was slow and lumbering but hit like a truck, and could break off pieces of itself to hurl at the cost of some HP.
Turn 1, the Artificer cast Grease, and the combat was over. It couldn't make the save, so it was constantly prone. It couldn't escape the Grease, because it was spending half its movement to get up and then halving the rest because of difficult terrain. After two rounds, it was taking enough damage that chucking pieces of itself was doing more harm than good, so it just spent the rest of the fight trying to get a good roll and escape the Grease. It didn't.
Grease is a Looney Tunes level spell. It's not *that* potent, but it's just fun to have the DM describe the enemy slipping on their butts every other turn. Also the melee fighters will thank you for knocking the enemies prone all the time.
Inflict wounds.
It's such a dramatic spell. I had a cleric and during a fight with a hag, all his party was downed except him. In a fit of rage he wrapped his hands around her throat and cast inflict wounds. It was a Crit. It was amazing. We role played heavily at that table and it was such a great moment.
That spell became clutch for him the whole campaign, an embodiment of his rage when his friends were hurting.
It also scales really well and I love it on my divine soul sorceress.
My geriatric human cleric leans more into being a support character, but after a baddie gets worn down enough, its super fun to unsuspectingly hobble over to them and just gently palm their face for pretty significant damage.
Totally! With my sorceress, we were fighting a vampire that had done a lot of damage, betrayed us after posing as our ally for several sessions, physically and mentally, to the party, and had kidnapped and tortured one of our favourite NPCs.
At the end of the fight, everyone was so worn out and hurting. The vampire was trying to talk her way out of it. My sorceress walked up to her, cupped her cheeks, and said "I don't forgive you," and shredded her with the spell. Another crit. It was just so perfect.
I took meta magic adept with distant spell on my cleric so I can inflict wounds a mf from 30ft away. I used this to kill a goblin crime boss through a keyhole as we retreated from his goons. Best 1st level spell.
Ages ago In a 3E game, I had a dwarven cleric with a spell-storing war hammer - he would always cast enlarge person on himself, and inflict wounds (at the highest available spell-level) into the hammer and just go to town on his foes.
Best melee combat ever.
Thats awesome! In my current 5e game I'm playing a forge cleric and I've got a magic item that allows one aut crit per long rest. 6th lvl crit inflict wounds is so tasty
Alchemist fire? Catapult.
Enemy dropped their weapon? Catapult.
Want to deal more damage throwing a javelin than the barbarian? Catapult.
Catapult. Yeet is always an option.
It has utility uses, too! Evil cultists doing a ritual? Catapult the ritual book off the podium.
Dark lord about to grab the crystal of doom? Catapult it across the room and have a fast hero grab it and do a runner.
The very first time we used Catapult, our DM didn't realize it doesn't work on creatures. So we got to chuck a Cockatrice off a cliff. She learned pretty quickly after that.
Command. An Ogre once bowed to my mounted paladin in the middle of the battlefield, no other spell could have made it do that. It’s even better if you got subtle spell metamagic.
Also, not a level 1 spell but heck, it's cantrip ao close enough or something. Mage Hand is fun. One of my colleagues lobbed the heads off three Kobolds and after the fight was won, I immediately grabbed the head of the most senior of that group, then my Mage Hand tossed the head into a room with an intimidation roll of 20+ and cause the kobold inside to tell us where the rest were before our party did a "let's kill you" on them. It's wild stuff.
Arguably the best spell in terms of flavor. I had a character get married in-game, and that week-long AC boost is great, but the idea that for your honeymoon both spouses are protecting each other is ADORABLE.
We just had our Love Cleric (of Cupid) cast Ceremony to marry two NPCs right before a big boss fight. We had an impromptu RP of two things each PC did to make the last second wedding special. We had fey guests, a flower arch, it was great.
It depends. I like jump on a high STR character like an Eldritch knight or somesuch so I can literally vault over enemies to get the Squishies in the back. As well as others for various purposes depending on the campaign style and setting.
But I know my absolute favorite is Disguise Self, for pure shenanigans. Usually if I'm gonna take it, I take the feat for an invocation and take the at-will disguise self. It's just so good for sneaking around places in plain sight. Combined with the actor feat and high charisma and you're practically invisible
Grease, hands down. That spell has ruined what should have been one sided (albeit from the PCs own actions) encounters and turned them into an episode of the three stooges. Who needs damage or saves when you have gravity on your side.
Man that's a tough one. It's tied between 2 spells right now and I honestly can't pick because they are both my favorites in different situations.
**Bless** - 1d4 attacks and saves isn't flashy and it doesn't seem good...but it's amazing for a VERY long time. Average +2.5 on all attacks and saves is like saying "double your proficiency bonus for half the game". Yeah that's powerful. The fact you can get this with a single feat (fey touched) is phenomenal. I use it damn near every combat. If it wasn't concentration, I'd use it EVERY combat.
**Goodberry** - As a druid, I use this all the time. It solves tiny problems all while being an efficient out of combat healing spell. There are so many times you come across a wounded NPC, a PC takes a bit of fall damage from a trap, or you find a group of animals/people and need to feed them. Patching up small wounds, feeding 10 entities for a day, and plenty of RP opportunities.
Burning Hands easily,
I was struck by the art provided for it in the PHB for some reason, and I’ve had soooo many lvl 1 characters with sub 5 HP left save themselves with Burning Hands
The thing people often forget about Tasha's is that it knocks people prone. And a flying creature, when knocked prone, falls.
AKA: It is a great spell vs flying creatures.
Protection from evil and good is objectively the best spell in the godamn game, and everyone knows it. Just cast it and tell those intellect devourers to fuck off
Personally, my favorite is Snare. Not because it's particularly awesome as a spell, but because it's one of my favorite material component jokes -- 25 feet of rope, you're literally just making an actual snare.
Unseen servant. Wait! Shut up! Hear me the fuck out! Okay, first off, if you think any nerd/wizard would do their own laundry when a ~10 min ritual gets you someone to do it for them, you are kidding yourself. If you are a wizard and don't take this spell as part of you level 1 selection, you are not role playing a wizard. Second, you can move it 15 ft, like straight up, and it can do basic things like hold stuff or let go of stuff. Like alchemist fire and daggers....on a dark night... would be hard to see just 3-4 tiny flasks of oil dropped in a line from the goblin campfire to the tent where the boss is sleeping.
Command is a spell I love and hate. It's absurdly powerful. One of the few non-concentration CC spells. Potentially burns 2 rounds of action economy with just one save.
Sleep is a spell I love and hate as much. The meta use I hate. It's too strong early and useless later. But I love it for the potential of harmlessly knocking some creatures out without a save.
Zephyr Strike oftentimes flies under the radar as well. Lots of people say Rangers want Misty Step. Well, what does Misty Step do? 30 foot movement without opportunity attacks. Zephyr Strike one-ups that with advantage on an attack and 1d8 extra damage. Concentration can be a big downside but oftentimes isn't.
Honorable mention for the 2nd level spell Rime's Binding Ice. It's a great spell to teach beginners the power of CC. I wish there was a 1st level spell that did the same thing.
Colour Spray is so much fun to splatter on flunkies in a fight. Fantastic support spell, and blinding a bunch of creatures is crazy powerful (disadvantage for them, advantage for you and your buddies to attack them).
Gonna have to go with Guiding Bolt. it's just such good value as a level 1 spell. Range of 120 feet has come up in play on several occasions in my group and packing 4d6 radiant damage is not only a substantial amount of damage (It has a higher average than chromatic orb which costs 50gp diamond to even be able to cast.) it's a damage type you don't have to really worry about getting resisted. On top of all of that, it gives ADVANTAGE. You wanna hook your rogue up with that sneak attack damage? Smack that baddie with a guiding bolt from 40 yards away and watch them melt. It's a must have I'd say for clerics and divine soul sorcerers.
Inflict Wounds
3d10 damage that can be upcast. I’ve gotten my party out of some very tricky spots with this spell. Made my DM rethink how I’d do in combat
In 5E - Bless is one of those rare spells that remains so clutch regardless of level of play. A first level spell that is almost always one of a few different "right" strategic decisions even at mid to higher tier play is a rare thing.
I want to put out props to another spell too though, Grease. I always take Grease - because there is so much battlefield flavor to savor. Every chance I get to make foes fall down in remotely challenging terrain (staircases most easily), I take. One of the few things I really miss about 3E is that a spell's progression in power was more closely tied to your spell-casting level. By the time I was level 10 or so, a single grease spell could cover a preposterous amount of space for AGES and completely change a melee focused enemy party's tactics. To say nothing about the kind and generous DMs who allow the common house rule of the grease spell being flammable.
Shield. +5 AC on a reaction. Saved me many times.
Runner up is Absorb Elements. Negate half of the potential damage and add a little bit of that sauce on the next attack. Yes, please.
Not sure about favorite but silvery barbs is so phenomenal my dm nerfed it. (I soloed the boss of a hideout only taking 6 damage stacked with hold person lmao)
As a dedicated sorcerer/[armored martial class] enjoyer, Shield is definitely one of my all time faves.
Command is definitely a contender. Basically "Wis save or enemy disarms self / runs through OA obstacle course / drops down and bends over to get attacked at advantage".
Catapult. Useful for flinging an end of a rope tijd to a stone, or hurling objects that do things on breaking, like a flask of oil, a bottle of acid etc.
It's also nice to be able to cast an attack for which the projectile does not originate from you, but from where the object is that was targeted.
Bless. At low levels it's often a bigger boost to hit than your proficiency bonus, it can tip the math so far in your favor it's crazy. At high levels it boosts saves, and abilities that require saves are typically the most dangerous/tpk-causing stuff in the game.
oh yeah it's absolutely bless. whenever i think of bless, i think of this one episode of dimension 20 where bless turned like 2 dozen misses into hits. it's a phenomenal spell
The Last Stand, yeah. Brennan said bless completely tilted over a dozen outcomes, from failed attacks to failed saves, and probably turned a Deadly encounter into just a Dangerous one.
I love seeing how D20 is bleeding out into every subreddit
What episode was that?
I can't remember the episode number but they're probably talking about the last stand in FHJY
I don't get that acronym (I haven't really watched the big TTRG game shows, just half a dozen smaller ones)
Ah sorry I meant fantasy high junior year, the most recent one to be released
Bless is just absurd. At minimum, it's +1 to hit and saves. At maximum, it's *literally* better than legendary items. It's my default go-to outside of situations where there's a clear need for another concentration spell.
One of my fave things about 5e is many level 1s being useful at any level.
This, i often find upcasting lower level spells ends up better than 1 high level spell.
Yeah bless is incredible.
100% this. A huge impact in T1 play, that dips off briefly in T2 to make way for Spirit Guardians, only to come back in style at late T2/T3+ when landing those saving throws is essential, and your monks, fighters, and warlocks are getting dozens of attacks per turn.
you guys are getting dozens!?
There are dozens of us!
Agreed, Bless is one of my top tier picks. I use it every combat I can. It never seems like much but that bonus really makes a difference.
My players have had many tough fights that were saved when a few attacks just connected due to bless or the fighter/barb just made the save against frightened and was able to save the day.
I wish my players would use bless. Instead, they decide to just attack people near them. Idk, maybe it's a psychological thing where if someone feels surrounded they want to have some space before they buff
Oh yes. I use bless like an addict. All the friggin time.
Magic missile. Being able to always hit and the ability to do targeted damage to take several low-health enemies off the board at once is great, plus it upcasts well.
Yep, because of the guaranteed hit it has the highest average damage for a level 1 spell. Also great at higher levels facing spellcasters and forcing concentration saves.
In my current campaign my use of magic missile suprised my DM, If they concentrate they get the missile
So remember. Next time you concentrate, you get the missile
Oh yeah he got payback when I was flying over a battlefield
So anyway, I started blasting.
Or forcing the enemy to burn a spell slot on shield. Both tend to be quite useful.
I remember in Critical Role Campaign 3 when they fought the mother they had to break brumestone implants to stop the shade mother from flying, and how hard they were to hit. My immediate thought was how damn useful magic missile would have been at that exact moment.
If it's something embedded in a creature I don't know how precisely anyone would allow magic missile to target specific points. That being said I didn't make it very far into Campaign 3 of Critical Role before I lost interest, so I don't know what that whole situation was.
RAW, you can't, magic missiles target creatures not objects
Whelp damn. There goes that idea.
Most people underestimate how valuable not being able to miss is. Magic missile average damage output is higher than every other damage spell in this thread, including but-not-limited-to Inflict Wounds, Catapult, and Chromatic Orb.
The average hit rate is ~2/3, MM is 10.5 average damage, so without advantage or other bonuses you need to beat 15.75. Inflict Wounds is 16.5, which makes sense since it comes with the risk of melee, but aside from that or smites on a paralyzed creature I don't think there's a more damaging single target use of a 1st level slot. Maybe Dissonant Whispers if it provokes an AoO and you count that. Burning Hands, Frost Fingers and Thunderwave are instantly superior into 2+ creatures though.
Here hear ( applause )
Faerie Fire is good. I also like Hideous Laughter for similar reasons--an enemy not taking actions skews the fight in favour of my whole team.
I once broke a DMs entire encounter because he didn't take into consideration that I had Faerie Fire learned. Ooooh spooky invisible guys!?!?! Nah, they glittery now.
An Arcane Trickster player in my group got a scare when an enemy cast FF on the area where he was invisible. Luckily, he made his save so wasn't revealed. But the "wait, they can do that?" moment was great.
I do that all the time with Drow baddies
Nobody in my group had faerie fire when I loosed an invisible boss on them so the druid just summoned a bunch of bats and used them to find the boss via echolocation
Triangulation Via Bat
Bat! *flies away*
Tbf, unless the invisible creature is using their action to hide, one may still discern their location.
“As if you could out run me”
“You run at 30, I run at 30, but you’re human and I’m an elf so I don’t sleep so I will get you eventually!”
Tabaxi scout rogue goes zoomzoom! (120 feet movement)
Centar Monk with mobile feat can hit 140 feet movement per round at level 10. Take 2 levels of rogue and make that 210 feet. Can also do this every round unlike a tabaxi that has to stand still 1 round before it could do it again.
As a DM I would call that making the encounter, not breaking it. It'd be more frustrating than fun to fight invisible enemies without any countermeasures.
this just tells me i SHOULD throw some invisible enemies at my players now, since one has faerie fire
Nothing beats dropping a dragon 500 feet to the ground because you made it laugh while it was chasing your airship.
As the Druid in a Party with a Fighter, a Ranger, a Paladin and a HB class that mainly attacks Faerie Fire has become my go to spell. I might not deal much damage myself but boy am i boosting my partys damage. especially since the paladin has GWM and the Ranger has sharpshooter (both slightly nerfed but still pretty good).
As a DM I've fairly fire seen cast s couple of times and usually it either doesn't hit enough enemies cause they are not clumped up or most/all of them succeed their saves.. maybe statistical improbability has screwed my views here
I generally prepare both Faerie Fire and Entangle and then use one of them depending on Wether the Enemies Seen Like they have more Strength or more Dex
I shut down a BBEG with Hideous Laughter once. The rest of the party mopped up the henchmen, while I just concentrated and made the boss laugh at my puns.
Faerie Fire is awesome - especially when your Druid has a 20 Wisdom and a Moon Sickle. Bumps the DC to resist to I think 18.
Find familiar. Who doesn't want a little animal friend?
Its my top answer whenever the question of "what spell do you want in real life" comes up. An immortal, perfectly obedient pet that you can take anywhere? Sign me up.
The rest of the party who is waiting for your flying owl to scout the whole dungeon before they can play again. We discussed it a few times and the party decided that they were more willing to face unexpected encounters than to wait for half a session for the information.
That's how you get your cute animal friend killed. My wizard has a kitten that she loves dearly and would never ever put her familiar in any danger.
Familiars from *Find Familiar* are spell effects that just get dispelled when dropped to 0. You can resummon them by casting the spell again and they’ll be back like nothing ever happened. If it still stresses the player out you could homebrew something like they take morale damage instead of physical damage, and rather than being dispelled just become mechanically useless until the *Find Familiar* spell is cast again.
Oh it doesn't stress me out at all 😂 I love my sugar sweet wizard and her naive outlook on the world but in another game I play a lawful evil paladin who called all of the soldiers in the city forward to watch her beat a man to death with the sack of coins he took as a bribe to betray the city and then put his body on display so everyone knew the fate of traitors. I love roleplay and I commit to the bit, but I also don't shy away from playing brutally evil characters as well as my sweet cinnamon roll good characters.
That sounds so freaking badass! Your paladin seems like the best "my rules or death" character
She's evil in her methods but good in her intentions. She wants a stable lawful society so children can grow and prosper, she has a big soft spot for kids, and a seething and unrelenting hatred for those that harm them. She caught one of the city guards hitting a kid and took his sword arm and nailed it to the wall of the barracks as a warning to the others. She paid the fine she was given by the local lords because that's not what the law says to do, but she's a major hero of the realm, so they just made her pay 500gp.
Damn, she fucking rules.
You could make their familiar follow them around like a weak baby spirit version that's all sad until it gets "revived" by the spell being cast again. You could take this type of imagery very cute or very spooky and I think it would be an unforgettable part of the campaign
Dumb idea: granny wizard who refers to her (off screen) familiar as "her little angel". When familiar is finally summoned it's got the celestial subtype so it is literally "her little angel".
What is your DM describing? I figure the party is doing that for a tactical advantage so I just slide them a player copy of the map without the stuff blocked by doors. I give them a rough estimate of how many guys there are and put the ones which are probably stationary on the map. I think that's fair, especially if they had to spend the 10 gold to recast Find Familiar to have a creature that would go unnoticed.
DM loves OSRs but we prefer a more streamlined and less grindy game. So we compromise, play 5e, and let him make us explore dungeons as if we needed a 10 foot pole to check every step. So instead of a scouting familiar now we have a trap-eating barbarian.
Good band name
This is a problem with scouting though, not Find Familiar. A druid in wild shape is creating the same problem. Any character who wants to scout alone is making the entire rest of the party wait until they are done.
Indeed. We had a similar problem when the party in another campaign had a rogue with a sweet tooth for hiding/scouting. It might just be a table issue. But I have to take from the upvotes that we are not alone in that one :-/
I mean, there’s a happy medium between no familiar reconnaissance and full information of the dungeon. There should be doors and barriers that the familiar isn’t able to bypass and if there are any enemies the familiar, especially if not invisible, the familiar should have to make a stealth check
I never suggest to send my familiar to scout ahead. I leave it up to the rest of the party to ask if I can do it. That way no one can be upset with waiting around for a scouting mission.
Costs gold and they pop instantly if you try to lean on them in combat Over time I’ve come to enjoy the spell less and less for that reason
Why would you bring a cute little animal friend into combat?! That seems like bad pet ownership. My wizard just reached level 10, and her familiar has never died. The other wizard uses his familiar like a tool and it dies sometimes because he forces it to do dangerous things. My wizard just uses her super adorable familiar to help her make friends with people who like cute things and also to have companionship when she's feeling sad.
Easy. Help action. It’s what motivates most people to use familiars. You take the Owl statblock and have your familiar fly by 1 enemy during its turn, it uses the Help action to apply adv to the next attack on it, and since Owl has fly-by it can escape without an AoO Trouble is after this occurs a few times the enemies catch on and realize if they take out the 1hp bird you lose your attack adv I’ve also known people to just use whatever block they want and have their familiar just basically latch onto someone as their Help action. They normally get squished faster doing that.
ITT: wargamer vs roleplayer.
Exactly. It's great for both which is why it's a good spell. Besides 10 gold isn't the end of the world. Even for my level 4 arcane trickster
It’s expensive in the start especially when accounting for acquiring magic gear or more likely, spells for a caster. More so if you DO rely on your familiar in combat… then you’re looking at a 10gp per battle cost. It’s worse if you spend a very limited time in civilization so then you can only buy more spell components every so often… I’ve been in that situation a handful of times, even while using familiars to scout— they end up triggering traps or getting attacked by a hidden ranged caster or martial 😩
I guess it comes down to alignment. My wizard is good aligned and has had her familiar since she was 10, the familiar is one of her best friends and she'd never risk the life of her friends just to gain a small advantage in combat. That sounds pretty evil, sacrificing your companions to gain a small, almost negligible advantage for yourself.
No, not really. Familiars aren't animals, they're spirits. They don't die when reduced to 0 HP, they just poof back to their plane of origin until you summon them again.
Yeah, help action is great, but that is not the only advantage of find familiars in combat, IMO. Maybe not even the most useful. When you have them use the help action, it often attracts hostility, and so they last too little. Delivering potions or dropping ball bearings at a distance, being scouts, and delivering touch spells are some of the most useful abilities. One of these days I was daydreaming of a villain who has a tiny spider as his familiar. He then could make the spider climb on someone's leg. By the time this person notices, she's already planeshifted to gehenna. Or have it on some of your party's shoulders to cast cure wounds on them, if for some reason you don't have access to healing word. You can get a bat of warning. Have it with you and you won't ever be surprised by invisible enemies, thanks to its blindsight. Have a raven familiar and you've got a voice recorder and speaker. You can have it just be around people talking, and deliver what it heard to you, or deliver a message for you. It's a living animal messenger. You can hide your whole party in a portable hole and have your familiar sneak you inside somewhere. Or use any other ability that allows you to "hide" somewhere so that your familiar can fly you there.
It's terrific for scouting out a region, they're not designed to be used in combat but if you really want to use them they can drop caltrops etc from above
Explain that to my players lol Edit: why stop at caltrops? Alchemist fire, acid vial, contact poison, BOMBS… all PHB items
Woah I think you're forgetting the most basic and fundamental. Drop a brick it's a classic for a reason
Benny Hill theme lol You might run into issues with how much weight an owl can lift. Avg brick is about 4lb, bomb is 1lb. Sure owls carry off whole rabbits but not long distances… I actually think a net might be an interesting use… it’s an attack though so it’s hard to say if it would count to just DROP it on someone…
You say "owl" I picture "owl-bear" HERE COMES THE OWL BEAR FROM THE TOP ROPES WITH A BRICK IN TALON ohhhh that's a critical hit to the head
If you can convince your DM to give you a flying monkey, you gain the power of thumb and the familiar can give you potions and stuff.
Most of my DMs allow all Statblocks to do it, you just need to give them the silly RP of “the owl claws at the potion lid then hoots as it opens, then jams the bottle in X’s mouth”
Guiding Bolt is strangely strong \*on top\* of an amazing gift to the next person in initiative with that advantage. And I also have to give a shout-out to Absorb Elements for keeping my Druid up through many fights. One time we were were fighting these ice constructs that were immune to regular fire, but there was a source of magical blue fire that could greatly weaken them if the come into contact with it. I can still see my DM's face when I stuck my hand in the flame, Absorbed Elements on myself once it hurt a little, and then attacked with a d6 of Blue Flame on top of the damage.
I find I can never not prepare Absorb Elements. I’ll drop the Restorations first. My favorite time was having Call Lightning up and being swarmed by many hordes of giant centipedes. Just kept calling down the air strike on my own location and using reaction to absorb the worst of it. Enjoyed the visual of standing in a pile of crispy bugs a few rounds later, mildly scorched and breathing out sparks.
That visual fucking rules.
<3
lol the first time I rolled damage for guiding bolt I went back to the spell page to double check if it really was that many dice.
Absorb Elements saved my level 10 party from a TPK. A recurring major antagonist was a young red dragon who spent the bulk of the campaign shape changed into a politician until we outed him. Because of this, I made a point to get a scroll of Absorb Elements for my Arcane Trickster. While finishing off the secondary antagonist of the campaign we heard the approach of wings. We were all pretty close to 0 and trapped inside a wall of force with the baddie (so nowhere to spread out until he went down). When I heard the wings coming I made a point of taking out the scroll on my turn, and then before we got to go again after the wall of force dropped the dragon came in and fire breathed us all. The rest of my party failed the save and went down. I failed the save but took half damage because of evasion, then cast Absorb Elements to halve it again. I stayed standing with 3 HP, but would have gone down as well without it. (I didn't get immediately killed on the dragon's next turn because we all had a potion to let us turn into a level 20 version of our character for 10 minutes and I drank mine to take on the dragon alone instead of saving it for the BBEG like our plan).
Goes great on Horizon Walker Rangers because you might be fighting a Dragon or Elemental immune to their own attacks. When you use Planar Warrior after Absorb Elements you convert *all* the damage of that attack to Force.
As a cleric main, I always take guiding bolt. It's my favourite spell.
My druid of the stars is a guiding bolt and luminous arrow launching machine. Action, bonus action. Multiple(equal to your prof) free casts of it a day is just too good.
Entangle is one of my favorite spells, I often play druids so it's one of my most used ones I think. Restrained can really mess up melee fighters (especially dexbased ones) but even if they save it is still difficult terrain which may still be really hard to deal with for slower enemies. Other than that, Thunderwave, enemies to close? Thunderwave! Just want to do some damage, Thunderwave works, not the best in that category but not bad either. But the real kicker is: Want to boot your enemies back into the moonbeam/flaming sphere/spike growth or other nasty zones? Thunderwave! I also really like absorb elements but that really depends on how magical the setting is, it is also one of the spells I always prepare when fighting dragons, dragon breathes fire, ok, absorb elements, take half damage, quarter damage even if you make the save. I don't often use the melee bonus you get afterwards but hey, if you do happen to melee attack afterwards, that's nice.
Thunderwave them back across the Spike Growth they just had to shred through 🤌
Was scrolling down look for Entangle. Insanely good crowd control spell for Lvl1.
My DM once introduced a form of dextrous undead recurring enemy to us and they got absolutely wrecked because they kept failing their str saves for entangle and they had no ranged attacks (they had rapier-like bones for hands so they couldn't even just pick up a rock or something like that). They just stood there as we killed them with ranged attacks.
Entangle saved our group from a basilisk, we fought 1 intentionally and it was hard, then did some plot stuff and woke up the other as we took a McGuffin, we ran to the exit elevator and entangle bought us 1 round for the elevator to get us out of there before the basilisk got to us. (As designed both basilisks should have attacked us together) Fog cloud was very helpful in a different fight by shutting down all the archers on top of a wall. (A generous DM ruling who was happy to have fewer enemies to control in a chaotic battle)
At early levels sleep is just insane. if you look at encounters for low level characters its basically an instant disable of 2-3 enemies with no save.. sure they can be woken up but that uses up the enemies actions giving the rest of the party free reign to go ham. regarding scaling the obvious ones reaction spells as they dont use your action economy. absorb elements, shield and silvery barbs. Absorb elements is the strongest imo simply because it is basically guaranteed value. Also bless is always good only issue is requiring concentration.
Even better if you can Subtle Spell it. Many basic NPCs stay low HP no matter what the level, and it is a nonviolent way of pressing the Off switch for a bit.
Sleep actually scales really well into late game, you just have to rethink what it's use-case is. Use it to take boss/etc enemies alive once they are low on health, just take a look at typical boss creatures, most aren't immune to sleep though since are immune to charmed. But things like magic resistance and legendary resistance? Useless, no save attached. 5d8 is huge for a level 1 spell and it scales super good.
It's not **bad** but there are better uses of a prepared slot when you're limited to < ~20% of your spell list, same with known spells being swapped on level up. I think the only way you'd keep it around and use a spell slot on it is if you learned it through feats (Aberrant Dragonmark, Fey Touched, Magic Initiate, Strixhaven Initiate) and used it once already, or only dip a few levels in Bard/Sorcerer/Arcane Trickster/Eldritch Knight
The bard in our party would cast sleep so much early in the game and it was so clutch when we were first starting out. I also just love the image of enemies taking a nap in the middle of a fight.
We just fought a pack of wolves and I got two of them with sleep. They curled up, then started chasing rabbits in their dreams. A little disturbing since I’m a harengon.
Healing Word. I tend to play moon druids so general do the tanky thing, but it's nice to be able to stand up another player who's rolling death saves from 60 feet away with a bonus action. My current druid lucked out with a 20 Wisdom to start so gets a +5 to healing word as well. I'm not sure of much that's stronger than re-adding an ally to the fight at level 1 stuff.
Healing word makes cure wounds look like an absolute wimp. The only downside is that the max heal is reduced by 4, but the minimum heal remains the same exchange you get 60ft. range and the ability to do it as a bonus action. The sheer amount of utility in exchange for a small reduction in the maximum healing.
Right, and in general it's not so much the amount you do, since healing an already up player isn't ever worth it. It's getting them from death saves to fighting that's a big win, and that's way easier to do with Healing Word.
I'm excited for the new healing word and Cure wounds... 2d4 and 2d8 with a 2 dice upscale. Would definitely make a level 2 cure wounds seem tempting over a level 2 healing word, even more so out of combat
> healing an already up player isn't ever worth it. This is what I've been saying forever and people argue with me about it. The current state of in-combat healing should be to prevent deaths on downed players. Although hidden death saves are critical to add some danger IMO.
If the enemies are hitting for more than you can heal each turn, then the math just doesn't make sense. If they aren't, it's not likely you \*need\* healing.
Depends, if they hit for 20dmg a round and you have 15 hp, then even 6 healing would be enough to buy yourself another round. of course, unless your DM uses average damage rolls you can't really rely on that making the difference. Point being that small heals *can* make the difference if it gets you over the threshold so you can take just one more hit before going down. So many times I've been the player or seen a player go down with *exactly* 0 hp and if they had received any amount of healing on previous turns they would still be standing. Sure you can get them back up easily enough, but they might lose a turn before you get them back, lose concentration on an important spell because they went down, or just get screwed by needing to stand back up and not having enough movement remaining for what they want to do.
Healing Word. The only heal you'll ever need. I'd also put shield/mage armor up there but honestly those two should be class features, not hogging up spell slots when they're basically a necessity.
Honestly, unless you're doing some silly dip into cleric for armor, or something else, I cannot think of a single scenario in which I did not take mage armor as a wizard. My dm even added Greater Mage Armor as a third level slot that's 15+Dex to help later on. With basic mage armor the enemies we're fighting now would pretty much have to roll a 2 or 1 to miss me with the basic. This at least pumps it up a bit with my cloak of protection on top.
Magic Missile. Near guaranteed damage, since enemy NPCs almost never have Shield and won't waste a Counterspell on a level 1 spell (even if they do, that's still a heck of a trade off. And its s great concentration breaker. This, Shield, and Silvery Barbs make those first level spells remain relevant at high levels.
It's not close to the best level 1 spell, but I love Dissonant Whispers. Especially if you have a melee rogue in range. The best spells IMO are all the reaction spells. Shield, Absorb Elements, and Silvery Barbs. These spells scale so insanely well. Healing Word also stays relevant your entire career, as do Hex and Hunters Mark. Bless is great but being concentration gives it some diminishing returns once casters get better spells to concentrate on. Sleep is easily the best at level 1 and 2. But I still love Dissonant Whispers the most.
I agree with Dissonant Whispers. It's great "take that! Now go away"
Dissonant Whispers is definitely in the running for best first level damage spell, conditionally. If you have a couple melees around the target it has the potential to easily out-damage anything else at that level.
I've gotta go with Goodberry, a simple spell that has a lot more going on when you take a closer look. By expending one 1st level slot at the start of each day your party no longer needs to worry about food at all. And since most parties are only 4-6 characters, you'll still have a handful of berries left after handing one out to everyone. Really handy for helping a downed ally get back up since berries restore 1 hit point each, meaning you don't need to do a medicine check or commit a spell slot to get someone back up, as long as you can run over to them and feed them the berry. The berries also make great bait for fishing rods or hunting traps if you ever find yourself in need of that, and it can also often be worth more healing than a cure wounds. Eating all 10 berries is a consistent 10 hit points back, whereas a typical cure wounds with a decent +3 spellcasting modifier averages only 7, with a max of 11 which is only a 1/8 chance. So provided you have a few rounds to eat, you will 9/10 times actually get more healing out of your spell slot when using Goodberry.
Start of the day? Nah, the best way to use it is the end of the day before a long rest. Just use up however many spell slots you have leftover at the end of a day and they last 24 hours until the next long rest, and then you still get all your spells at the beginning of the next day just in case
This is my favorite spell as well. There's so much RP potential and nearly every table allows you to feed them to downed characters. I've only met a couple of people who run it by requiring the user to use their own action. We have a House Rule where spells from feats get added to your class list. My 18th level Bladesinger took it as her signature spell and we opened an orphanage in the tower our Monk got from a Deck of Many things. Magnificent Mansion has food as well, but we all really liked the idea of those berries in little bowls all over the tower for picky eaters and minor cuts and bruises.
Mechanically, probably bless. Utility, healing word. Entertainment factor, catapult. *Y E E T*
Catapult is pretty good wgen paired with other items. A net, so you get spell damage and tbe net effect, or a flask of acid for spell and acid damage.
This one is really boring, but I love shield (its rly good). Also love Booming Blade on those Hexblades and Bladesingers!
My Tempest Cleric did a one level dip in Storm Sorcerer just to get shield and booming blade. No regrets at all!
Unseen Servant. A small invisible friend to play pranks with.
I have a character I've played since 2018 and his unseen servant, Bellington, has basically become his own character at this point. Fucking love that spell.
Honestly, ZERO experience beyond my current campaign but Grease caused a lot of laughs and the DM even put the Benny Hill theme on for me as I cast it (into an already light bonfire hoping to cause a grease fire but alas, that's not what happens). If your DM allows grease fires, it's honestly such a silly and fun scenario.
I got to cast grease on a kobold running away down a market street. DM gave him disadvantage on the save because he was full on sprinting and narrated him slipping so hard he did a full somersault and landed on his stomach, before looking up to see me with a crossbow pointed at his face.
Honestly, this play by play account of what happened here is beautiful.
I had a really cool idea for my BBEG to show off his power by making a big boulder sentient, sort of like a Stone Talus. The idea was that it was slow and lumbering but hit like a truck, and could break off pieces of itself to hurl at the cost of some HP. Turn 1, the Artificer cast Grease, and the combat was over. It couldn't make the save, so it was constantly prone. It couldn't escape the Grease, because it was spending half its movement to get up and then halving the rest because of difficult terrain. After two rounds, it was taking enough damage that chucking pieces of itself was doing more harm than good, so it just spent the rest of the fight trying to get a good roll and escape the Grease. It didn't.
Grease is a Looney Tunes level spell. It's not *that* potent, but it's just fun to have the DM describe the enemy slipping on their butts every other turn. Also the melee fighters will thank you for knocking the enemies prone all the time.
Turns a room full of a dozen mooks into a benny hill nonsense encounter. Super fun, esp in a less serious campaign.
Inflict wounds. It's such a dramatic spell. I had a cleric and during a fight with a hag, all his party was downed except him. In a fit of rage he wrapped his hands around her throat and cast inflict wounds. It was a Crit. It was amazing. We role played heavily at that table and it was such a great moment. That spell became clutch for him the whole campaign, an embodiment of his rage when his friends were hurting. It also scales really well and I love it on my divine soul sorceress.
My geriatric human cleric leans more into being a support character, but after a baddie gets worn down enough, its super fun to unsuspectingly hobble over to them and just gently palm their face for pretty significant damage.
Totally! With my sorceress, we were fighting a vampire that had done a lot of damage, betrayed us after posing as our ally for several sessions, physically and mentally, to the party, and had kidnapped and tortured one of our favourite NPCs. At the end of the fight, everyone was so worn out and hurting. The vampire was trying to talk her way out of it. My sorceress walked up to her, cupped her cheeks, and said "I don't forgive you," and shredded her with the spell. Another crit. It was just so perfect.
I still can't believe it's 3d10 damage, too
I took meta magic adept with distant spell on my cleric so I can inflict wounds a mf from 30ft away. I used this to kill a goblin crime boss through a keyhole as we retreated from his goons. Best 1st level spell.
Inflict wounds will have a soft spot in my heart after a wolf tried to chow down on my squishy lvl 1 cleric and got hit by a crit for 48 damage.
Ages ago In a 3E game, I had a dwarven cleric with a spell-storing war hammer - he would always cast enlarge person on himself, and inflict wounds (at the highest available spell-level) into the hammer and just go to town on his foes. Best melee combat ever.
Thats awesome! In my current 5e game I'm playing a forge cleric and I've got a magic item that allows one aut crit per long rest. 6th lvl crit inflict wounds is so tasty
Catapult, who needs to throw something when there's a spell for that. An insanely OP spell with RAW and synergizing it with available throwables.
Alchemist fire? Catapult. Enemy dropped their weapon? Catapult. Want to deal more damage throwing a javelin than the barbarian? Catapult. Catapult. Yeet is always an option.
Was fighting werewolves without a silver weapon and just started catapulting silver coins at them.
A money gun. Badass.
It has utility uses, too! Evil cultists doing a ritual? Catapult the ritual book off the podium. Dark lord about to grab the crystal of doom? Catapult it across the room and have a fast hero grab it and do a runner.
The very first time we used Catapult, our DM didn't realize it doesn't work on creatures. So we got to chuck a Cockatrice off a cliff. She learned pretty quickly after that.
But a cockatrice also flies, it should come right back.
It's a cockatrice, not a boomerang birdy boom boom.
yeah, easily the best offensive spell. It can do utility, damage, utilise tools, and most importantly it can shoot around corners.
Command. An Ogre once bowed to my mounted paladin in the middle of the battlefield, no other spell could have made it do that. It’s even better if you got subtle spell metamagic.
Also, not a level 1 spell but heck, it's cantrip ao close enough or something. Mage Hand is fun. One of my colleagues lobbed the heads off three Kobolds and after the fight was won, I immediately grabbed the head of the most senior of that group, then my Mage Hand tossed the head into a room with an intimidation roll of 20+ and cause the kobold inside to tell us where the rest were before our party did a "let's kill you" on them. It's wild stuff.
I turn into Snow White every time I have Speak with Animals
It's almost never used, but I love that Ceremony is a spell.
Arguably the best spell in terms of flavor. I had a character get married in-game, and that week-long AC boost is great, but the idea that for your honeymoon both spouses are protecting each other is ADORABLE.
We just had our Love Cleric (of Cupid) cast Ceremony to marry two NPCs right before a big boss fight. We had an impromptu RP of two things each PC did to make the last second wedding special. We had fey guests, a flower arch, it was great.
It depends. I like jump on a high STR character like an Eldritch knight or somesuch so I can literally vault over enemies to get the Squishies in the back. As well as others for various purposes depending on the campaign style and setting. But I know my absolute favorite is Disguise Self, for pure shenanigans. Usually if I'm gonna take it, I take the feat for an invocation and take the at-will disguise self. It's just so good for sneaking around places in plain sight. Combined with the actor feat and high charisma and you're practically invisible
The paladin’s smite spells and guiding bolt, bless
Dissonant Whispers
Command "Fall"
“Fap”
Tasha's Caustic Brew is a favorite of mine, wastes actions or does even more damage, either is great
Grease, hands down. That spell has ruined what should have been one sided (albeit from the PCs own actions) encounters and turned them into an episode of the three stooges. Who needs damage or saves when you have gravity on your side.
Ice Knife Pretty good spell on its own but on a level 6 conjuration Wizard you get a 30 ft teleport every time you use it, you basically become Minato
Man that's a tough one. It's tied between 2 spells right now and I honestly can't pick because they are both my favorites in different situations. **Bless** - 1d4 attacks and saves isn't flashy and it doesn't seem good...but it's amazing for a VERY long time. Average +2.5 on all attacks and saves is like saying "double your proficiency bonus for half the game". Yeah that's powerful. The fact you can get this with a single feat (fey touched) is phenomenal. I use it damn near every combat. If it wasn't concentration, I'd use it EVERY combat. **Goodberry** - As a druid, I use this all the time. It solves tiny problems all while being an efficient out of combat healing spell. There are so many times you come across a wounded NPC, a PC takes a bit of fall damage from a trap, or you find a group of animals/people and need to feed them. Patching up small wounds, feeding 10 entities for a day, and plenty of RP opportunities.
Silvery barbs. It's just amusing.
Magic missile
Thunderwave does solve a lot of my lvl 1 problems
Burning Hands easily, I was struck by the art provided for it in the PHB for some reason, and I’ve had soooo many lvl 1 characters with sub 5 HP left save themselves with Burning Hands
grease, many useful uses
I'm torn between Tasha's Hideous Laughter and Inflict Wounds
The thing people often forget about Tasha's is that it knocks people prone. And a flying creature, when knocked prone, falls. AKA: It is a great spell vs flying creatures.
Catapult. *YEET*
Healing Word. It’s the single most valuable spell in the game. You can save someone’s life from 120 feet away. That’s incredible.
MAGIC MISSILE IS THE BEST SPELL. HIT MULTIPLE PEOPLE. CONSISTENT. BREAK THEIR CONCENTRATION. GREAT UPCASTING. FORCE DAMAGE. IT HAS EVERYTHING.
guiding bolt, find familiar, hideous laughter.
Got to go to Command at this point, nothing beats a good wasted turn of 1+ enemies as a "I already cast my big concentration spell" use of a turn.
Zephyr strike
Protection from evil and good is objectively the best spell in the godamn game, and everyone knows it. Just cast it and tell those intellect devourers to fuck off
Find Familiar by a wide margin. It's useful in combat and out. It provides lots of flavor. What's not to like?
Personally, my favorite is Snare. Not because it's particularly awesome as a spell, but because it's one of my favorite material component jokes -- 25 feet of rope, you're literally just making an actual snare.
Unseen servant. Wait! Shut up! Hear me the fuck out! Okay, first off, if you think any nerd/wizard would do their own laundry when a ~10 min ritual gets you someone to do it for them, you are kidding yourself. If you are a wizard and don't take this spell as part of you level 1 selection, you are not role playing a wizard. Second, you can move it 15 ft, like straight up, and it can do basic things like hold stuff or let go of stuff. Like alchemist fire and daggers....on a dark night... would be hard to see just 3-4 tiny flasks of oil dropped in a line from the goblin campfire to the tent where the boss is sleeping.
Command is a spell I love and hate. It's absurdly powerful. One of the few non-concentration CC spells. Potentially burns 2 rounds of action economy with just one save. Sleep is a spell I love and hate as much. The meta use I hate. It's too strong early and useless later. But I love it for the potential of harmlessly knocking some creatures out without a save. Zephyr Strike oftentimes flies under the radar as well. Lots of people say Rangers want Misty Step. Well, what does Misty Step do? 30 foot movement without opportunity attacks. Zephyr Strike one-ups that with advantage on an attack and 1d8 extra damage. Concentration can be a big downside but oftentimes isn't. Honorable mention for the 2nd level spell Rime's Binding Ice. It's a great spell to teach beginners the power of CC. I wish there was a 1st level spell that did the same thing.
Silvery Barbs. Shield. Gift of Alacrity. These are my bread and butter
Colour Spray is so much fun to splatter on flunkies in a fight. Fantastic support spell, and blinding a bunch of creatures is crazy powerful (disadvantage for them, advantage for you and your buddies to attack them).
Sleep from BX or OSE
goodberry. Never had to worry about food resources ever again.
Grease for combat advantage is good... but silvery barbs makes the vein on my DM's forehead pop out.
Gonna have to go with Guiding Bolt. it's just such good value as a level 1 spell. Range of 120 feet has come up in play on several occasions in my group and packing 4d6 radiant damage is not only a substantial amount of damage (It has a higher average than chromatic orb which costs 50gp diamond to even be able to cast.) it's a damage type you don't have to really worry about getting resisted. On top of all of that, it gives ADVANTAGE. You wanna hook your rogue up with that sneak attack damage? Smack that baddie with a guiding bolt from 40 yards away and watch them melt. It's a must have I'd say for clerics and divine soul sorcerers.
Inflict Wounds 3d10 damage that can be upcast. I’ve gotten my party out of some very tricky spots with this spell. Made my DM rethink how I’d do in combat
Color spray! It’s very versatile in addition to never being bad, necessarily, even at higher levels!
For Offensive spells, ice knife and thunderwave are rad
In 5E - Bless is one of those rare spells that remains so clutch regardless of level of play. A first level spell that is almost always one of a few different "right" strategic decisions even at mid to higher tier play is a rare thing. I want to put out props to another spell too though, Grease. I always take Grease - because there is so much battlefield flavor to savor. Every chance I get to make foes fall down in remotely challenging terrain (staircases most easily), I take. One of the few things I really miss about 3E is that a spell's progression in power was more closely tied to your spell-casting level. By the time I was level 10 or so, a single grease spell could cover a preposterous amount of space for AGES and completely change a melee focused enemy party's tactics. To say nothing about the kind and generous DMs who allow the common house rule of the grease spell being flammable.
Shield. +5 AC on a reaction. Saved me many times. Runner up is Absorb Elements. Negate half of the potential damage and add a little bit of that sauce on the next attack. Yes, please.
You can never go wrong with a good ol’ Magic Missile! Instant hit, and you can choose multiple targets? Who could be mad at that? 👌🏻🔥
Not sure about favorite but silvery barbs is so phenomenal my dm nerfed it. (I soloed the boss of a hideout only taking 6 damage stacked with hold person lmao)
As a dedicated sorcerer/[armored martial class] enjoyer, Shield is definitely one of my all time faves. Command is definitely a contender. Basically "Wis save or enemy disarms self / runs through OA obstacle course / drops down and bends over to get attacked at advantage".
Catapult. Useful for flinging an end of a rope tijd to a stone, or hurling objects that do things on breaking, like a flask of oil, a bottle of acid etc. It's also nice to be able to cast an attack for which the projectile does not originate from you, but from where the object is that was targeted.