Ozwick's Guide To Omnipotence: Spells For Creative 5e Wizards

Side note: I’m currently building a setting called the Wishbound World, where creative uses of
magic have deeply impacted the world and its economy! You can find an outline of the premise
here, and some recent ideas about the uses of magic in its economy here. I’ve also written
about a creative use of Fabricate here, and some adventure hooks here.
Welcome!
In this guide I will rate and analyze every spell of 5th level or below, with a focus on utility,
problem-solving, and creative spell usage. I plan on adding analysis of higher level spells in the
future.
A note on DM-dependent spell uses:

In some of my analyses I may mention ways of using spells that seem kind of cheesy or that a
DM might rule against. I have included most uses that I think stay within RAW, but depending
on your DM some of them may not fly in-game, so you should consult with your DM before
taking a spell that you are thinking of using in such a way.
Ratings
I will rate the spells using colors, similar to how it is done in other guides, so that you can quickly
see what I think of a spell overall. Note that the order follows the order of colors in the rainbow.
Red: Bad
Orange: Not great
Yellow: Okay
Green: Good
Blue: Great
Magenta: This spell is a standout, not only among other spells at its level, but among all wizard
spells. I don’t rate many spells magenta, but if I do, please take it.
Cantrips
This guide is all about creativity, so when it comes to cantrips, I favor the more flexible ones.
Unlike prepared spells, you only get a few cantrips, so if you want to feel good about your
choices in play they should minimize redundancy and be useful often. You want at least one
damage cantrip, because a damage cantrip is your backup for when you’re conserving spell
slots in combat or you don’t have much better to do. I prefer to take just one since that’s really
all you need, but if you take two I won’t judge you too much.
The cantrips with the most flexibility/utility are Minor Illusion, Prestidigitation, and Mage Hand. I
personally like to take all three of those. The best damage cantrips are Ray of Frost, Toll the
Dead, Fire Bolt, and Chill Touch. It doesn’t really make a difference to me which of these I have.
Acid Splash: Crap damage. The ability to hit two adjacent targets is way too situational to be
worth it. If you do hit two targets, 2d6 is an average of 7 damage, while 1d10 (Fire Bolt) is an
average of 5.5 damage. Do you want to do very slightly more damage occasionally in exchange
for horrible damage most of the time?
Blade Ward: Resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage from weapons sounds
appealing, especially for a squishy caster, but it’s never worth your action. If you’re really, really
desperate, cover yourself in an illusory box made by Minor Illusion, which will give enemies
disadvantage when attacking you since you’re unseen, or make an illusory wall to let you walk
away without triggering an attack of opportunity. Or, you know, you could take the Dodge action.
Booming Blade: Possibly not bad for certain gish builds. Bad for every other wizard. You don’t
want to be close enough to enemies to hit them.
Chill Touch: The most misleadingly named spell in the game. Chill = cold damage and Touch =
range of touch, right? Wrong, necrotic damage with a range of 120 feet. Jokes aside, not a bad
damage cantrip, although I think the benefits are a little too situational to make up for the lower
damage. That said, we’re talking an average damage difference of 1 point per die, so if you like
the flavor or you think the benefits will come up, go for it. If you just think Fire Bolt is too boring,
maybe take a look at Ray of Frost, another sidegrade which I think is a bit better.
Control Flames: Initially I thought this was a flavor cantrip without any practical use, but looking
at it again, the brightening of the flame could actually be in some ways more useful than the
Light cantrip. Light sources are not super expensive, and if it’s really annoying to you for some
reason to have dungeons be dark, casting this on the flame in a hooded lantern for example will
give you a light source that sheds bright light out to 60 feet and dim light for an additional 60
feet, comparable to the Daylight spell. By contrast, Light would shed bright light for 20 feet and
dim light for another 20 feet.
Create Bonfire: Not bad at low levels, since you might be able to deal damage multiple times
with it. The big drawback is concentration, which is a very, very big drawback once you get to
slightly higher levels; concentration is simply not something you use on a cantrip once you have
better options. Because of this, I do not recommend this spell. A possible creative use involves
having a pit created by Mold Earth with a bonfire at the bottom and with the top concealed by a
Minor Illusion.
Dancing Lights: Again, a cantrip that uses your concentration. The advantage over Light is that
you can light up enemies without lighting up your own party, and this illumination spell is a little
more interesting and versatile. In my opinion, not worth the lower brightness and concentration,
though.
Fire Bolt: The classic damage cantrip for wizards. Good damage (for a cantrip), not much else
to look at. Simple but effective.
Friends: The hostility once the spell ends is the main drawback; that said, not a bad cantrip for
social situations if that’s what you’re into. Redundant with Charm Person, though, which is just a
1st level spell, lasts much longer, doesn’t require concentration, and has a less harsh
consequence once the spell ends, so take that into consideration. A potential creative use
involves using Disguise Self to take advantage of the hostility and direct it at someone else.
Frostbite: A more boring Vicious Mockery, but wizards don’t get Vicious Mockery, so potentially
okay. I don’t think the debuff is really worth the low damage.
Green-Flame Blade: What I wrote about Booming Blade applies here as well. Not
recommended for most wizards.
Gust: It would be nice to push enemies into crowd control or damage over time effects with this,
but 5 feet is a piddly distance to push someone. 30 feet is also a very short range.
Infestation: Crap damage, lackluster random movement effect in exchange. Crap range, crap
saving throw (Constitution). The movement effect might be okay if it provoked opportunity
attacks, but it doesn’t, so it’s pretty much useless.
Light: Very Gandalf; makes you feel like a real wizard. Unfortunately, a hooded lantern is
brighter and not too hard to obtain. Still, for some reason the flavor and the essentiality of
having a light source, especially if you don’t have darkvision, makes me think of it as okay; not
being able to see things as a caster is horrible.
Lightning Lure: The short range and the fact that the enemy is moved right up next to you
makes this spell very circumstantial and dangerous. If you have some tremendously clever
setup with multiple casters involving Cloud of Daggers and Web and Grease, or you’re very very
good at positioning, this might be useful. However, similar to Gust, most of the time there won’t
be a position from which you can pull an enemy into your damage or crowd control spell, which
is what this spell reads like it should be useful for.
Mage Hand: Solid utility and flexibility. The obvious use is to open every chest and door that
could conceivably by trapped from a comfortable distance away, or in general handle dangerous
things with it. Also useful for stealing, escaping a cell, tapping people’s shoulders, et cetera.
Note that casting the spell and manipulating the hand both take an action, so this spell isn’t very
useful in combat for administering potions and the like since it takes 2 rounds to do anything
with it.
Mending: Not bad, utility-wise, although somewhat circumstantial. Some potential for creative
use: hide things inside of sealed objects, have manacles made without a lock and then break
them and mend them onto a person’s wrists, cripple your wagon full of gold to deter theft by
breaking the wheels and then mend them when you get back, and so on.
Message: Another okay utility cantrip, although this one has less potential for creative use.
Another strike against it is that its effect can be mostly replicated by Minor Illusion; simply create
a whisper in someone’s ear saying what you want them to know.
Minor Illusion: The good cantrip. Dude, this is arguably more useful than Silent Image, and
Silent Image is a 1st level spell, and not a bad one at that. If you have both, Minor Illusion can
provide sounds for your Silent Image since Minor Illusion doesn’t use concentration. The
obvious use is for auditory distractions, e.g. the sound of footsteps coming from the place you
want the guards to check out. Another common use is as cover in combat; depending on your
DM it may or may not provide actual cover, but at the very least it should give opponents
disadvantage on attacks, since you’re unseen. Yes, it can only be 5 feet tall, but most
humanoids are capable of bending over a little. Other than these obvious uses, the potential for
shenanigans is limitless.
Mold Earth: Digging a hole quickly can be surprisingly useful, occasionally. Find out what
happens when you dig one 20 feet deep and put caltrops and ball bearings and a magical
bonfire at the bottom and ice the sides with Shape Water and cover the top with Minor Illusion
and lure an enemy into it. I think I might have mentioned pit traps once or twice before. Pit traps
can be fun. Unfortunately they’re not actually very practical. 95 percent of fights don’t involve
on-site preptime. Fun to think about, though, and you might be able to think of a better use for
fast digging than me.
Poison Spray: The other horrible damage cantrip. I get this confused with Acid Splash because
their names are similar and they both suck. D12s look appealing, but like I’ve said before,
wizards are too squishy to be getting in close and 10 feet is a crippling range.
Prestidigitation: My personal favorite cantrip, although it’s probably less useful than Minor
Illusion overall. So flavorful, and while it doesn’t solve a whole lot of problems, it can be used
pretty often to create fun moments out of combat. It’s also fun to try to think of uses for each
effect. Make the annoyingly charismatic Sorcerer breathe a breath that smells like rotting fish
when he’s trying to charm some ladies. Soil the Sorcerer’s pants. Flavor the Sorcerer’s saliva to
taste like vomit or piss or blood. Recolor the Sorcerer’s cloak to be hot pink. Make a drawing of
a penis appear on the Sorcerer’s forehead. Put an illusory image of a tarantula on back of the
Sorcerer’s hand (the image doesn’t have to be in your hand, it just has to be small enough to
fit.) See why I love this spell?
Ray of Frost: As I’ve mentioned, a good sidegrade to Fire Bolt. Has a subtle but reliable slow
effect.
Shape Water: There are some creative uses, though; shaping the water and then freezing it
can give you a kind of crappy Minor Conjuration, letting you make a boat, a small set of stairs, a
knife, or other things of that nature. You can also make fake blood or more convincing fake
drinks by combining this with Prestidigitation.
Shocking Grasp: Another close range damage cantrip, which suffers from the same drawbacks
as Booming Blade and Green-Flame Blade. The argument to justify this is that since it can take
away an enemies’ reaction, it can be used instead of the Disengage action to get out of a sticky
situation. I don’t totally agree with this perspective, because a Disengage is guaranteed to get
you out whereas this spell is not, and after low levels there will be much better ways to escape
enemies such as Misty Step or Thunder Step. This function makes it not as bad as Booming
Blade and Green-Flame Blade, though, and this could also be used to win Counterspell battles
against enemy spellcasters, I suppose.
Sword Burst: The worst parts of Acid Splash and Shocking Grasp combined. At least Acid
Splash can be used from a distance, and Shocking Grasp has okay damage. This has neither.
Thunderclap: Wait, did I just accidentally read the same spell twice? Except that this one is
somehow worse, because it provides a Constitution save (very strong save in many enemies)
and does Thunder damage instead of Force (Thunder damage is more commonly resisted), and
can’t be used in situations where stealth or discretion are important.
Toll the Dead: A good straight damage cantrip, usually better than Fire Bolt. It’s tough to figure
out the exact numbers, but a wisdom save might be better than an attack roll in a lot of
situations. The fact that it does more damage to hurt enemies is worth the reduction in damage
to healthy ones since most of the time you should be focusing on enemies that are hurt when
you want to deal damage.
True Strike: Bad for similar reasons to why Blade Ward is bad; the effect isn’t worth an action.
Also, using the actions to attack twice is flat-out mathematically better than attacking once with
advantage.
1st Level Spells

Some first level spells are much more useful at lower levels than at higher ones; I personally like
to think more long-term when selecting 1st level spells, and that usually means a bias towards
the utility side of things. Thankfully, there are a few standout 1st level spells that are pretty much
mandatory and stay useful in combat at every level, and Sleep is OP enough early on to keep a
Wizard useful in fights even if most of their spells lean towards utility.
Absorb Elements: Use a reaction to halve damage of certain elemental damage types. Seems
a little situational on the surface, but those damage types actually come up pretty often, and
being able to use a reaction to gain resistance when they do come up is fantastic. The slight
damage buff to weapon attacks is irrelevant for a Wizard, but that doesn’t really matter. Nothing
about this becomes less useful over time; this spell might even get more useful as at higher
levels you encounter more enemy casters throwing out elemental damage, dragons with
elemental breath, and so on.
Alarm: A nice ritual to make your short and long rests a bit safer. Not as useful once you get
Leomund’s Tiny Hut later, but still gives added measure of safety. The long range of the mental
ping also means that you can put it on your wagon full of gold or your room at the inn while you
go into the dungeon.
Burning Hands: This spell does the same average damage as Magic Missile, but in a
short-range cone which can potentially hit multiple opponents and with a save for half damage
while Magic Missile auto-hits. Similar to Acid Splash, I think that in actual play the potential to hit
multiple enemies is less useful than it seems and is not worth the downsides. You don’t want to
get that close to enemies, especially when your HP is barely in the double digits. That said, not
a horrible spell, and certainly not on Acid Splash’s level of awful.
Catapult: Single target damage that is flat-out mathematically worse than Magic Missile;
however, for the creative Wizard, there is potential here that the optimizers may not see.
Depending on your DM, you may be able to launch nets, bags of caltrops/ball bearings, bags
containing flasks of oil/Alchemist’s Fire/acid, et cetera. Also, depending on the DM’s
interpretation of the wording, you may be able to make the object stop short of 90 feet,
propelling a magic item or MacGuffin right to your hand. If the object must travel 90 feet, instead
angle the propulsion upwards so that at precisely 90 feet it falls into your hand, or if you’re
indoors, so that it hits the ceiling with the same result. These other uses may or may not make
Catapult worth taking with or over Magic Missile, but they do make this spell more interesting.
Cause Fear: Lackluster effect that provides a save every round. Concentration, on top of that.
Maybe okay at very low levels, but useless past that.
Charm Person: Yes, the effect is situational at best and useless at worst in combat, but out of
combat this can be useful. The fact that the target is aware of having been charmed once the
spell ends limits you from spamming this all the time, but the 1 hour duration without
concentration means that in a lot of situations by the time they figure out what happened you’ll
never see them again. Combos well with Disguise Self, similar to Friends.
Chromatic Orb: Single target damage that the math says is worse than Magic Missile. Yes, the
raw damage is higher, but Magic Missile auto-hits while this spell does not, which is significant.
The material component can also be limiting at low levels. The supposed advantage is the
ability to change the damage type, but the Force damage of Magic Missile is probably better at
avoiding resistances than all of the elemental damage types of Chromatic Orb combined. That
said, the overall damage isn’t too different from Magic Missile, so if you like the flavor you won’t
be gimping yourself or anything by picking this.
Color Spray: Similar mechanic to Sleep. However, 1 round of blindness nothing compared to
flat-out unconsciousness, and the range is worse. The slightly higher HP of enemies it can
affect is not worth it. Essentially, the horrible scaling of Sleep without the early-level OPness.
Comprehend Languages: A decent ritual which can come up surprisingly often. You can
survive without it, but it’s worth picking up, especially since it stays useful at every level.
Detect Magic: An excellent ritual which will always be useful; an essential part of any wizard’s
toolkit. The 10-minute duration means you can explore a dungeon while keeping it up to detect
magical traps or magic items. Since illusions are not technically objects, it may or may not
detect illusions, but this is a potential use depending on your DM. Can also be used to check if
the party is under any magical effects such as Divination or Enchantment magic, similar to
Identify.
Disguise Self: Circumstantial, but quite fun, with potential for creative use. Often it may be
smart to only change your face so as to minimize the chance of being revealed by physical
contact. You can also conceal arcane foci/weapons/other things with this, disguising them as
pens or whatever, or pretend to be holding an object such as the MacGuffin or official ID or the
priceless painting you have actually not yet stolen, and so on. Ask your DM if being disguised as
someone whose hands are tied together allows you to perform somatic components without
appearing to move. Potentially overshadowed by Alter Self at higher levels, but while Alter Self
is harder to see through, it requires concentration and a 2nd level slot, so I think Disguise Self
stays useful. Also, you don’t want to take both from leveling up, and you get fewer 2nd level
picks, so Disguise Self is probably the better choice. You probably know if you’re into
shenanigans enough to want this.
Earth Tremor: This is a bit better than Thunderclap. Thunderclap is a cantrip, and a terrible
one. The prone and difficult terrain affects aren’t significant enough to be worth the short range
and bad damage, in my opinion.
Expeditious Retreat: An okay buff that takes only a bonus action to cast. Won’t stay useful at
higher levels, though, once you have other mobility options such as teleportation spells and Fly,
and much better uses for concentration.
False Life: A temporary health buff without concentration; sadly, the amount of health is too
little to make much of a difference. Possibly more useful at higher levels since it seems to
upcast fairly well.
Feather Fall: A classic, but pretty situational. Hard to rate, since it’s good when you need it but
you usually don’t. I’ve had times when I’ve regretted not picking it, though, so I’m inclined to give
it a good rating.
Find Familiar: Hands-down best ritual in the game. Excellent for scouting, spying, giving the
Help action, dropping nets or ball bearings or caltrops, and so on. This spell is pretty much a
class feature disguised as a ritual spell. Top-notch flavor and utility in and out of combat. The
owl is the best form for your familiar in combat because of Flyby, but a raven’s Mimicry, the
stealthiness of a spider for spying, a bat’s Blindsight, et cetera mean that even if you go for the
“optimal” choice it’s still good to change things up once in a while for other purposes. Also, if you
can ever obtain a Ring of Spell Storing, your familiar may be able to attune to it (most magic
items resize to fit creatures of any size or build). The ridiculousness of this is obvious; having a
familiar attuned to the Ring allows you to essentially cast two spells every round and maintain
concentration on two spells at once. I don’t usually mention magic items when talking about
spells, but this trick almost doubles your effectiveness as a wizard. Even without that, though,
passing up this spell is like not taking Eldritch Blast and Agonizing Blast as a Warlock; it’s just
sad.
Fog Cloud: Situational. Doesn’t really help against ranged attackers because of the way
advantage and disadvantage cancel out in 5e. Can be used to combat spellcasting to some
extent since so many spells require sight.
Grease: Not a game-changing CC effect, but it doesn’t use your concentration and is excellent
at choke points. Basically the CC equivalent of Magic Missile. Stays useful at higher levels
because of the lack of concentration.
Ice Knife: The primary damage isn’t great, although the secondary AOE damage helps it a little.
In my opinion, though, the small size of the AOE makes this spell suffers from similar drawbacks
to Acid Splash, although it’s not as bad.
Identify: This would be much more useful if 5e wasn’t so lax about identifying magic items. In
5e, they can be identified over the course of a short rest, which makes this mostly useless,
depending on how your DM handles it. However, the other use of this spell to identify magical
effects affecting creatures can still be useful. For example, if your character is a bit paranoid
they could cast it on themselves every morning.
Illusory Script: Very circumstantial and limited in its effect. Its only saving grace is being a ritual
spell, and you might be able to come up with creative uses for this, but it’s mostly useless.
Jump: Don’t take this spell unless you have some fantastic plan involving hanging from
Immovable Rods or something. Useless in combat, redundant in and out out of combat because
of teleportation spells, Rope Trick, Fly, Levitate, et cetera, all of which are far more flexible than
Jump.
Longstrider: A barely noticeable buff, although it doesn’t use your concentration. Maybe useful
if you figure out some precise positioning math involving the exact speed of the Ogre you’re
going to be facing that lets you always stay just out of its reach or something.
Mage Armor: I hate to hate this so highly because it’s really a boring spell, but sadly for most
Wizards, who lack armor proficiencies, this is mandatory. Without it, you AC will be crap even
with Shield and you will get slapped around. Take this and Shield and have a good AC.
Magic Missile: The bread-and-butter low level blast spell. Not a lot to look at, but
mathematically the best reliable damage at this level; if you take this you won’t need much else
in the way of damage options, freeing up your other 1st level spells for utility and fun.
Protection from Evil and Good: Too situational unless you know that you’ll be fighting a lot of
the creature types listed. Go for it if you’re playing Curse of Strahd; otherwise, leave this to the
Cleric or Paladin.
Ray of Sickness: The damage isn’t great, but the debuff is pretty good; the poisoned condition
is pretty potent, giving an enemy disadvantage on attacks and ability checks. Sadly, there’s both
an attack roll and a Constitution saving throw to avoid the debuff, but this isn’t a terrible option.
Shield: Absolutely mandatory for wizards; not super interesting, but this is what keeps you alive.
+5 AC as a reaction, which can be used after you know that the attack hits, keeping you from
wasting spell slots by shielding attacks that would have missed anyways. With decent Dexterity,
Mage Armor, and this spell, you can have an effective AC higher than or on par with the
fighter’s.
Silent Image: Illusions are fun, with lots of potential for creativity, and this isn’t a bad one.
Create illusory cover or reinforcements in combat, or combo this with Minor Illusion to make the
very religious dwarf town believe that you’ve been brought there by their god. A little redundant
with Minor Illusion and uses concentration, but flexible enough to stay somewhat useful.
Sleep: Absolutely overpowered at low levels, but useless in combat at higher levels. Knocks low
HP enemies right out with no saving throw. At higher levels there may be some limited use out
of combat as a discreet way to get past guards or grunts, or to put someone you don’t want
talking in a social situation to sleep.
Snare: Pretty useless. You don’t usually get on-site prep time before combat. However, if you’re
smart sometimes you can set it up that way, so this spell could be decent except that the effect
of triggering the trap is also very mild, providing a saving throw every round to escape. Also, you
can do basically the same thing with mundane equipment; just throw down a hunting trap.
Tasha’s Hideous Laughter: Pretty potent single-target debuff for 1st level; incapacitated is a
strong condition. May not last very long since the target gets a saving throw at the end of each
of its turns as well as when it takes damage, but you can potentially take an enemy out of the
fight for a few rounds. Like other concentration effects, this doesn’t scale all that well, but still,
potent for a 1st level spell. Also, it’s kind of hilarious. I like to say a lame pun before casting this
spell, or flavor it as spectral hands reaching out to tickle the creature.
Tenser’s Floating Disk: Exactly what it says on the tin. It’s a ritual, of course; if it wasn’t it
would be abysmal. Ask your DM what happens if your fighter sits on the disk and holds out a
21-foot pole with you tied to the end of it. Do you go zoom? If so, maybe a transportation option.
If not, probably not be worth your selection, despite being kind of interesting. Let me know if you
think of any other good uses besides hauling things around.
Thunderwave: Similar to Burning Hands, except except that this spell has a nice push effect
that can get you out of a dense melee situation. This is one of many alternatives to Shocking
Grasp for that purpose. Damage isn’t great, though, and doesn’t scale well with level.
Unseen Servant: A nice, versatile ritual for a creative wizard to have in their toolkit. Note that
the servants last for an hour and there’s no limit to how many you can have at a time, so if you
continually cast this as a ritual you can have 6 servants all working and getting something big
done fairly quickly, like building a Roman-style encampment for safety during a long rest. Also
great for sneaky activities such as cheating at cards or shoplifting, as the servant is invisible.
Makes for a good lantern-bearer in a dungeon so that the lantern can be held away from your
party to avoid lighting them up for enemies. You could even have two of them carry a sheet in
front of you at all times during a fight for full cover, although that might be kind of a pain. Let me
know if you come up with any especially good uses.
Witch Bolt: This spell is a trap, it really is. On the surface it seems like 1d12 repeated over time
might be a decent way to do damage and conserve spell slots. It’s not; a cantrip can do similar
damage, and Witch Bolt is so damn easy to break. It breaks if you use your action to do
anything else, if the enemy moves further than 30 feet away from you (good luck not letting that
happen,) or if the enemy ever has total cover.
2nd Level Spells

3rd level, when you first get access to 2nd level spells, is to me when you start feeling like a real
wizard. You get access to spells like Levitate and Web that can really change an encounter.
Unlike 1st level spells which with a few exceptions become mostly obsolete at higher levels,
there are 2nd level spells which will always feel powerful.
Aganazzer’s Scorcher: 3d8 is an average of 13.5 damage. Compare that to Scorching Ray,
which puts out 6d6 or an average of 21 fire damage. “But Ozwick,” I hear you cry, “Aganazzer’s
Scorcher is an AOE effect!” Well, yes, but lines are the worst kind of AOE. Especially short, sad,
30 foot lines. Come back to me when you can reliably hit 2 or more enemies with this as often
as you can hit 1 enemy with Scorching Ray. Also, spreading out damage as low as Aganazzer’s
is probably a worse idea even if the total damage comes out to be a little higher than Scorching
Ray’s; focusing fire on one baddie is more important than lightly sizzling two enemies.
Alter Self: The aquatic adaptation is incredibly situational, and the natural weapon is worse
than a damage cantrip. If you want this, you want it for the ability to alter your appearance in
some ways better than Disguise Self can. This isn’t useless, and in fact I can think of a few
schemes where it would be quite helpful, but I don’t think it’s worth a 2nd level spell selection.
As far as creative uses go, this seems more limited than Disguise Self.
Arcane Lock: This is a spell that was probably made for DMs, not players. I don’t think you
need me to tell you not to take this. Literally all it does is lock things. If you end up scribing it
from another source, consider asking your DM if you can lock your spellbook closed with it. Lock
your backpack, your Bag of Holding, et cetera so that they can only be opened by you or
someone who receives verbal permission from you. Not that these are creative uses; they’re just
pretty much the only things you can do with the spell. I guess if you’re a prankster you could
lock the doors to random inns or houses or lock other people’s bags.
Blindness/Deafness: Blindness is not a bad debuff, giving the creature disadvantage on attack
rolls and giving advantage to attack rolls against the creature. Sadly the saving throw is
Constitution and the target gets to make another save at the end of every turn, but this spell isn’t
concentration, and you can target multiple creatures by upcasting it. Overall, not bad; there
aren’t many non-concentration debuffs.
Blur: Not a horrible defense spell if you’re desperate or playing a gish, but this generally isn’t
worth your concentration. If you want a defense buff, go for Mirror Image, which amazingly
doesn’t require concentration, making it a much better spell.
Cloud of Daggers: Decent damage with no save or attack roll, with the potential for multiple
rounds of damage with planning. The big reason I would pick other spells over this is the
concentration requirement; I usually throw out a concentration spell on my first turn, and then
throw out damage spells on subsequent turns if I don’t have something better to do. Not only will
casting a concentration spell end Cloud of Daggers, but more importantly casting Cloud of
Daggers will end a concentration spell, so this isn’t a reliable damage option. It’s not terrible,
though, because if you can figure out a clever way to trap a creature in this using a pit trap or
something, it can do a lot of damage over time.
Continual Flame: You made a torch that doesn’t go out? Call the presses! Of course you can
tell that this isn’t worth selecting upon leveling up. Note though that if upcast, this spell can be
used to make a permanent lantern that will always be able to light up Darkness.
Crown of Madness: The big issue here is that the creature has to make the attack before it
moves to another creature within reach. The madman’s allies can pretty easily take a step away
after the first attack, or the madman can move away. Also, this takes concentration and an
action to maintain every round. Possibly useful in certain niche situations with someone who
can put out a whole lot of damage in one turn or multiple enemies trapped in a tight space, but
generally not a good spell.
Darkness: Basically Fog Cloud but in a higher level slot. There is some potential for creative
use, such as casting this on a pebble and then in the chaos slipping it in an enemy’s hood so
that they take it with them and their group is effectively blinded until they figure out what’s going
on. This can also be quite useful if you have a Warlock in the party with Devil’s Sight. Otherwise
not great.
Darkvision: Most creatures have darkvision anyways. You could also just bring a light. There
might be very situational uses involving covert operations but generally this isn’t very useful.
Detect Thoughts: Incredibly useful out of combat for information gathering and the like,
especially since if you just read surface thoughts (which is generally plenty,) the target doesn’t
get a saving throw or have to know that the spell has been cast on them. This can also be
helpful with deception; if you’re disguised as someone and people start asking tough questions
that you don’t know the answer to like “what’s the password” or “what’s the name of our superior
officer,” well, now you know. Potentially useful in a boss fight so you can find out ahead of time
what spell is going to be cast next or when the dragon’s going to use its breath attack. Useful
after the bad guys have been defeated as well; ask where the MacGuffin or the magic items are
being kept. Information is power, and Detect Thoughts gives you that in spades. Who needs
insight checks? Who needs Zone of Truth?
Dragon’s Breath: Obviously, this goes on your owl familiar for a nice little bit of AOE damage
every round. Used this way, it’s like a slightly better Melf’s Minute Meteors (upcast to 3rd level it
does the same damage as flinging 2 meteors but with a slightly bigger AOE).
Dust Devil: This might be an okay forced movement effect if the forced movement and crappy
damage didn’t apply at the end of a creature’s turn, giving it plenty of time to move away in
whatever direction it pleases. As it is, I guess you can use it to keep enemies from moving
through a choke point? Use Grease or Web instead.
Earthbind: Dealing with flying enemies can be a pain for your poor melee fighter buddies, and
this spell could help with that, but most of the creatures you want to use this on, like dragons,
have Legendary Resistances and/or good Strength saves. Also this is just flat-out situational.
Enlarge/Reduce: The mechanical effects of this are pretty lackluster, but you can come up with
some creative uses. Enlarge an enemy so it can’t fit through a door. Reduce a locked door so
you can get through. Reduce the lid of a locked chest. Who needs Knock? The text for Enlarge
says that if there isn’t enough room, the target fills the maximum space available, but there is no
such clause for Reduce; what happens if you put a chain around a box and Reduce it? Does the
box break? What if you Reduce a box that has a creature in it?
Flaming Sphere: Better than Cloud of Daggers because you can move this, but casting
Dragon’s Breath on your owl will do more damage than ramming this into enemies each turn.
The only advantage then is the ability to use this to control choke points, but with the lackluster
damage I think you’re still better off with a CC effect like Grease or Web.
Gentle Repose: This is way too circumstantial to pick upon leveling up; like Protection from Evil
and Good, you’re better off leaving this to the Paladin or Cleric.
Gust of Wind: This could be okay if you’re on a bridge or near a cliff or other environmental
hazard. Otherwise, there are better ways to keep foes at a distance. Have I mentioned Web?
Hold Person: Situational because the enemy has to be a humanoid, but paralyzed is a great
condition to inflict, so I think this is okay.
Invisibility: Sneaking around invisibly is always fun. Your DM had better give you advantage or
something on stealth checks, though, because by RAW all the Invisible condition does for
stealth is let you take the Hide action while out in the open, so maybe ask about that before
taking this. It might be worth taking even if you plan taking Greater Invisibility later, because
Invisibility lasts for an hour and can be upcast to conceal your whole party while Greater
Invisibility lasts only a minute. Invisibility ends up being more for out of combat utility while
Greater Invisibility is a buff that can be used in combat.
Knock: Situational, but this can be useful if you don’t have a Rogue or the Rogue fails his
Dexterity check to pick the lock. I wouldn’t take this upon leveling up, though.
Levitate: Useful in and out of combat. In combat, it’s a really potent save-or-suck for 2nd level;
a levitated enemy is unable to move while your party hits it with ranged attacks or from behind
cover. Out of combat, it can be used to scale walls and cliffs of course, or as a crappy version of
Fly if you can get your flying familiar to pull you or something. Note that RAW, flying creatures
are kept from using their fly speed to move when affected by this spell.
Locate Object: Circumstantial, but sometimes surprisingly useful if you get a little creative.
When the evil wizard Dimension Doors away taking his spellbook and magic items with him,
don’t waste a 4th level spell slot casting Locate Creature; instead, locate his cloak that you saw
him wearing. If your DM doesn’t think that “secret door” is a particular kind of door, locate doors
that don’t have handles or knobs. Other good things to locate include arcane foci, weapons, and
spellbooks; having a Bag of Holding is useful for this as you can put your own possessions in it
so as not to locate them since they’re in another dimension.
Magic Mouth: Another spell that’s more for DMs than for players. I hate that I can’t justify
picking this up, though, because of how fun it is. Put a magic mouth on your Paladin’s holy
sword so that every time he swings it, it says “Shwing!” or “Hiiiiiyah!” or something. Put one on
your Bag of Holding so that if anyone takes it from you without your permission, it yells “STOP!
THIEF!” for 30 seconds. Put one on your necklace that is triggered by you holding your hand in
a certain way while beginning certain phrases, and which completes those phrases for you,
allowing you to appear to say things like “I didn’t do it!” while under the influence of Zone of
Truth. Use it as an equivalent of the Alarm spell, except active on your person at all times.
Magic Weapon: Too situational to be worth picking, uses your concentration, and past a certain
level everyone will have magic weapons anyways.
Maximilian’s Earthen Grasp: The damage isn’t great, and there are much more potent CC
effects at this level like Web. Also, Strength is a bad save.
Melf’s Acid Arrow: Single-target damage that is strictly worse than that of Scorching Ray.
Mind Spike: For Diviners, this is a decent way to farm spell slots using the Expert Divination
feature. For everyone else, this is bad damage with a situational side benefit.
Mirror Image: A great defense spell that doesn’t use your concentration. The no concentration
thing is big, in case you didn’t get that already. I like to drop this on turn 2 after dropping a
concentration spell on turn 1.
Misty Step: Bonus action short-range teleport. This is a good way to get out of melee range
without provoking opportunity attacks. Note that the only spells you can cast on the same turn
as a bonus action spell are cantrips. Also note that the “that you can see” clause and the fact
that the target is Self means you can teleport through glass or to a spot that you can see
through your familiar’s eyes, a divination spell, et cetera.
Nystul’s Magic Aura: This spell might be a little better if it could get around attunement
restrictions on items like Robes of the Archmagi, but sadly Jeremy Crawford has said no to that.
The False Aura might be good for some bluffs or schemes, but it’s pretty obvious that this spell
won’t be useful often enough to be worth picking.
Phantasmal Force: Ooh, this is a fun one. In combat, this will usually be used to occupy one
creature with whatever illusion you’ve created, or to obscure sight, giving the target
disadvantage on all of their attacks and your allies advantage on their attacks against the target.
Out of combat, this is (correct me if I’m wrong) the only illusion that explicitly states in the spell
description that the target believes that it is real and rationalizes illogical outcomes in the
illusion’s favor. That makes this perfect for intimidation, faking the appearance of a divine being,
et cetera, as unlike other illusions there is little risk of this one being discovered despite the
creature being able to make an Investigation check.
Pyrotechnics: The amount of preparation needed for this spell to work makes it a little clunky,
but the fact that you have both the blindness and smoke options available without concentration
means that this still pretty good.
Ray of Enfeeblement: Compare this to other spells at this level such as Phantasmal Force,
Web, Levitate, and Blindness/Deafness. Phantasmal force can completely occupy an enemy
without providing it a saving throw every round. Web restrains an enemy and an action is
required to attempt to escape it. Levitate takes an enemy without ranged attacks (such as one
that wields a Strength-based weapon) completely out of the fight. Blindness/Deafness provides
a save every round like Ray of Enfeeblement, but gives a similar reduction in attack capability
without concentration. All of these spells are pretty much flat-out better than Ray of
Enfeeblement, which uses your concentration and provides a pretty mediocre, somewhat
situational debuff until the creature succeeds on a Constitution save.
Rope Trick: Safe short rest and protection from melee attackers without concentration. For
combat, carry a short rope, maybe 10 feet or so, cast this, and hide while poking out only to cast
spells. Dragon uses a breath attack? No problem, you’re in another dimension. Lich casts
Meteor Swarm? No problem, you’re in another dimension.
Scorching Ray: Decent single-target damage. The best at this level, so far as I’m aware,
although that isn’t saying much. You can pretty safely leave single-target damage to the martial
classes, who are experts in it, but if you really want to blast this is a good option for this level.
There aren’t really any good AOE damage spells until Fireball.
See Invisibility: Very situational, especially with the way invisibility works in 5e. Invisible
creatures are not automatically hidden; they are merely unseen, granting them advantage on
attacks and giving disadvantage to those who attack them, but not hiding their position. If an
invisible creature is hidden, it will reveal itself if it attacks. Because of this, you can probably get
through a fight with invisible enemies without this spell, so I don’t think it’s worth it to prepare.
Shadow Blade: Similar to the melee cantrips, this might be good for certain gish builds but not
for most wizards.
Shatter: This is a pretty disappointing area blast in terms of damage and AOE. You can hold
out until Fireball.
Skywrite: At least it’s a ritual, but the effect is too limited to be worth picking up from leveling.
You can’t even make images or symbols. If you pick this up from a spellbook or scroll maybe
you can use it to advertise the magic items you want to sell, I suppose. It’s also a long-distance
communication option.
Snilloc’s Snowball Swarm: This is even worse than Shatter, and Shatter isn’t great.
Spider Climb: This might be useful for eavesdropping or certain other sneaky activities, except
that Invisibility is at the same level. This could be useful for scaling things, but Levitate is at the
same level. Let me know if you think of a good use for this spell that can’t be accomplished by a
spell of the same level or lower.
Suggestion: This spell depends a lot on what the DM thinks sounds “reasonable.” The example
that the spell description gives of asking a knight to give his warhorse to the first beggar he
meets doesn’t really help matters. That said, even if you err on the side of reasonable, this spell
is flexible enough to be useful at all levels of wizarding. A few ideas include suggesting that the
leader of a group of enemies surrender so their lives can be spared, suggesting that a wizard
you meet swap spells with you for your mutual benefit, suggesting that someone who is
catching on to your devious scheme give you the benefit of the doubt, etc.
Warding Wind: None of the effects are things that are going to be useful regularly, or even all
that often, and they’re also very minor. The only thing I could see being significant once in a
blue moon is the gas/fog-clearing. Not a great use of your concentration.
Web: Excellent AOE crowd control for this level. The key is that attempting to escape takes an
entire action, and that it takes a Strength check, rather than a saving throw, to escape, meaning
that creatures won’t be able to add their proficiency bonus. In the open, it can use up a few
actions; in a choke point, it can stagger enemies passing through, making them much more
manageable. Even at high levels I find myself falling back on Web again and again. It’s almost
on par with Evard’s Black Tentacles, a 4th level spell that does almost exactly the same thing
but with an added 3d6 damage per round to all that are stuck. This is a great spell to be using
your concentration on.
3rd Level Spells

Among the 3rd level spells are the two big AOE crowd control spells which can trivialize an
encounter: Hypnotic Pattern and Fear. There is of course also Fireball. Lots of good utility spells
such as Leomund’s Tiny Hut are at 3rd level too. As you get higher in level, 3rd level spells will
be your bread and butter of spellcasting.
Animate Dead: Not bad as far as minionmancy goes. If you plan on having four skeletons
following you around all the time, you may have some trouble keeping them with you discreetly,
as necromancy is frowned upon in many settings. For something more discreet consider Tiny
Servant. Skeletons and zombies also aren’t that strong and their usefulness may fall off at
higher levels. That said, it doesn’t use concentration, and anything that gives your party extra
actions is pretty good in my book. Definitely a must-have for a Necromancer, obviously.
Blink: The draw here is that this is a non-concentration defensive buff that can potentially be
pretty potent. The downside is the randomness and the potential for this to do pretty much
nothing. In an encounter that you think will last more than a few rounds, you’ll be able to rely
more on being invincible roughly half of the time, so in those fights you can get some decent
value out of this. This is also a great spell to cast before combat if you have prep time, of
course. However, I don’t think this is worth a 3rd level slot and an action in the majority of
combats, so it’s a little situational.
Bestow Curse: The Wisdom save or do nothing effect can be fairly potent, and depending on
your DM alternative curses can be fun. This is a single target save-or-suck-moderately spell,
though, and there are often better things you can do with a 3rd level slot.
Catnap: First of all, it’s debatable whether 10 minutes unconscious is even an improvement
over 1 hour conscious as far as resting goes. Second of all, it can only target three creatures,
meaning you may have to leave a party member or two without a rest or burn an even higher
level slot. Third of all, must better rest spells such as Rope Trick and Leomund’s Tiny Hut exist.
Why would you take this?
Clairvoyance: Situationally useful. Possibly worth preparing for a Diviner with Expert Divination.
You can often use a familiar to spy, though, especially with a sneaky form like a spider.
Counterspell: Use a reaction to shut down an enemy caster’s spell. This is a spell that doesn’t
always come up but when it does you’ll be glad you have it. Especially at higher levels, the
biggest threats to a party are spellcasters. Note that enemy casters may be able to Counterspell
your Counterspell, so it may be worth having more than one member of your party able to cast
this so that they can use their reaction to Counterspell that counter-Counterspell. Likewise,
remember when you get Counterspelled that you can Counterspell the enemy’s Counterspell.
Dispel Magic: Pretty useful, although it might be better for the Cleric or Paladin in your party to
prepare this. Again, spellcasting is the scariest thing in the game, and any way of shutting that
down is powerful.
Enemies Abound: Whoa, this spell looks like fun. Unfortunately it’s situational, but if you can
cast this from stealth, you can potentially weaken your foes before a fight even starts. Or get
someone thrown into an asylum.
Erupting Earth: The damage from this is far worse than Fireball, and difficult terrain is not a
very potent secondary effect. Does scale better than Fireball, but it won’t overtake Fireball
unless cast at 6th level, but even then only by .5 points of damage on average, and in any case
if you’re using a 6th level slot to upcast a 3rd level blast spell I think you’re doing something
wrong.
Fear: Now this is a pretty potent AOE crowd control effect. Whoever gets hit by this is effectively
out of the fight until they can break line of sight, and even then they have to make another save.
I’d say this is roughly on par with Hypnotic Pattern, as while Hypnotic Pattern keeps enemies in
place, not being able to shake them out of the fear effect is significant. A cone is harder to
place, though.
Feign Death: This is a ritual, at least, but it’s damn situational. Pick it up if you find it but it’s not
worth taking on level up.
Fireball: This is pretty much the blast spell; it’s very potent at 5th level when you first get it, and
although it is less useful at higher levels, it can still be a decent use of your action while you’re
concentrating on something else.
Flame Arrows: Use your concentration and a 3rd level slot to buff someone’s damage by 1d6
per attack! Or cast Dragon’s Breath on your Familiar, or Melf’s Minute Meteors for a way more
potent addition to your party’s damage.
Fly: Flying is pretty cool, and this has decent utility, but in combat there are usually better uses
for your concentration and out of combat the various teleportation spells will probably serve you
better. This may be circumstantially helpful against flying enemies, though.
Gaseous Form: Pretty situational, although note that this is a good way to get out of a
Forcecage as it will not require you to make a Charisma saving throw. Maybe that will come up
someday.
Glyph of Warding: Oh boy, I could write an entire guide about this spell. The useful part is of
course the Spell Glyph option, which allows you to store a spell that can be triggered later. Note
that activating these stored spells can bypass concentration, action economy, and (depending
on your dm) casting time, the three main balance factors that keep spellcasting from being
broken. This is obviously incredibly powerful. What limits this spell is that the glyphs cannot be
moved more than 10 feet from where they were created, and that there is a 200 gp consumed
material component. At higher levels the gold cost becomes less important, and there are ways
to get around the movement limitation. One way is to put the Glyphs in your party’s base and
then, after activating a ton of buffs for you and your party, Teleport to the dragon’s lair or
whatever the site of the big battle is. Another way is to keep your Glyphs in a Demiplane. This
opens up possibilities such as putting 20 Disintegrate glyphs in the center of your Demiplane,
creating the shadowy door on the ground below the BBEG, and then opening the door so that
the glyphs target the BBEG. This is all only practical at high levels, so you may not want to pick
this up early on from leveling up, but it’s quite powerful and there’s a lot of potential so maybe
pick it up later this kind of elaborate over-preparation is what you’re into.
Haste: An extra attack, doubled movement, increased AC, and other benefits for a member of
your party. A fairly potent buff, although there might be better spells to spend your concentration
on.
Hypnotic Pattern: The Fireball of crowd control spells. On a failed save enemies are taken out
of the fight unless an ally shakes them out of their stupor, which takes an action. Against many
enemies, you’re probably eating a lot of actions. Against a few enemies, if you can get them to
all fail their save, your party can focus them down one at a time, often trivializing the fight. This
spell can really break encounters. Note that it may be possible to keep your party from being
affected by this even if they are in the area by having them close their eyes before you cast it.
Leomund’s Tiny Hut: This spell makes resting so easy, and it’s a ritual. Protip: before taking a
long rest, cast this spell three or four times instead of just once, making multiple domes that are
slightly offset from one another. Now getting inside requires many Dispels/Disintegrates. Note
that according to Sage Advice, the dome has a floor, so enemies can’t tunnel inside either.
Life Transference: Why would you give up your own hit points to heal someone who is, in all
likelihood, not as squishy as you? The only reason this isn’t red is because it’s the Wizard’s only
healing spell.
Lightning Bolt: Same damage as Fireball, which is great, but in a line instead of a sphere.
Lines are usually going to hit way fewer enemies than spheres. You probably shouldn’t take
both this and Fireball, and Fireball is the better choice.
Magic Circle: The only real use for this is in combination with Conjure Elemental/Summon
Greater Demon and Planar Binding. That’s a potent combo, to be sure, but there really aren’t
any other uses. Maybe cast this around the Death Knight who you trapped in a Wall of Force
after you finish off all of his minions? There are other ways to keep a creature still for Planar
Binding.
Major Image: Like most illusion spells, this depends on your DM. I personally prefer spells that
act more reliably, but the flexibility of illusions is a plus. Note that this spell lasts until dispelled if
cast at 6th level. Definitely take this if you’re an Illusionist, of course, because then you can
have a permanent illusion that you take around with you and that you can change and make
real.
Melf’s Minute Meteors: A decent blast if that’s what you’re into. If you sling these while also
throwing out Fireballs you can do some pretty good damage. Note that Dragon’s Breath cast
onto your familiar does pretty much the same thing slightly better when cast at 3rd level.
Nondetection: Too situational to really be of use unless you’re a Sverbeflin Abjurer with the
Sverbeflin Magic Feat, in which case you can use this to recharge your Arcane Ward easily
between fights.
Phantom Steed: Mounts are quite good, and this is a fast one. Also note that it’s a ritual. The
mobility here is actually insane. When traveling or exploring a dungeon, cast this every 50
minutes, and when you get ambushed, you have effectively a 200 foot speed (or 100 foot if you
need to Disengage.) That’s enough to run into combat range, cast a spell, and then be out of
range of enemy spells/arrows/whatever.
Protection from Energy: Absorb Elements does this a million times better. You can’t cast
Absorb Elements on your fighter, I suppose, but oh well, he’ll survive. This is not worth
concentration and a 3rd level slot.
Remove Curse: Does exactly what it says on the tin. Leave this for your party’s Cleric or
Paladin. It’s too situational.
Sending: This is useless in combat, of course, but it can be surprisingly useful out of combat.
Need to find where the princess is being kept hostage? Sending her. Need a key bit of lore to
solve a puzzle? Sending a sage in Candlekeep. I wouldn’t take it from leveling up but I’d be
happy to find it in a spellbook or on a scroll.
Sleet Storm: Grease and Fog Cloud over a huge area. Forcing spellcasters to make a
concentration check against your spell save DC can be situationally useful.
Slow: A decently big AOE debuff with a pretty potent effect; this is amazing against enemies
that make multiple attacks. You can also choose which targets get hit, so no friendly fire. The
big downside is that affected targets get a saving throw every round to break free of the spell.
Overall, not as potent as Fear or Hypnotic Pattern, but possibly a good option to have for when
avoiding friendly fire isn’t possible with those spells.
Stinking Cloud: Situationally useful in cases where you can keep enemies in the cloud for
more than a round, such as indoors. In those cases this seems like a decently potent way to eat
up actions. Combine with Grease at the exit to the room for extra fun. However, the Constitution
save isn’t great, and a lot of creatures are immune to Poison damage or the Poisoned condition.
Hypnotic Pattern or Fear will usually be better options for eating up enemy actions at this level.
Summon Lesser Demons: Not being able to control exactly what demons appear, as well as
the demons not being under your control, limit the usefulness of this spell. If you take this
though, consider that Gentle Repose might be able to make your humanoid blood last longer.
Thunder Step: Like Dimension Door, but shorter range, requires sight, deals damage around
where you left, and one level lower. I think that’s a pretty good tradeoff. I love teleportation
spells, and this one is excellent. Note that you can take objects along with you and unlike many
other spells, this one does not specify that the objects cannot be worn or carried by another
creature, so go ahead and Thunder Step away with the enemy mage’s Staff of Power or the
Death Knight’s longsword.
Tidal Wave: Like most damage spells, this suffers from it’s-not-Fireball syndrome. Damage is
worse than fireball and prone is not a potent enough effect to make up for it. Also the AOE is a
less convenient shape.
Tiny Servant: Situational but adorable. Very similar to Animate Dead, except that you can’t
maintain control over multiple minions easily, which is a downside, but this is discreet, which is
an upside. Cast this on a bottle containing a Potion of Healing before a big fight so that it can
run out and administer its contents to anyone who gets knocked out. Cast this on your wand
before you get arrested so it can hide while you get your stuff confiscated and then return to
you. And so on.
Tongues: God this is situational. Cast Comprehend Languages instead and ask whoever you’re
talking to to write things down. Or wait until Rary’s Telepathic Bond which is a million times
better.
Vampiric Touch: The damage this does isn’t great, the healing isn’t great either, and it uses
your concentration.
Wall of Sand: This wall is a wall in the same way that a toothpick is a sword. Maybe
situationally useful to block line of sight, or in a hallway?
Wall of Water: Similar to Wall of Sand. Even if you freeze it somehow, a 5-foot section of the
wall has only 15 hit points.
Water Breathing: Situational as all hell, but it’s a ritual with a 24-hour duration, so there’s no
reason not to cast this every morning if you have it. I wouldn’t take it from leveling but scribe it if
you find it.
4th Level Spells

Oddly enough, 4th level is on the whole not that big of a step up from 3rd level as far as combat
spells go, with the exception of Polymorph which is insane. There are a lot of good options for
locking down a single target but not much for locking down multiple targets. I find this level of
spells to be more useful for utility spells such as Dimension Door and Arcane Eye.
Arcane Eye: An hour is plenty of time to map out an entire dungeon/castle/whatever with one
casting. Information is power, my friend. And there’s no limit on how far away you can send this
so except its duration, so you can safely scope out the evil castle from quite a ways away if you
want. Note that according to Sage Advice, it is blind beyond its sight range of 30 feet, but again,
an hour enough time to cover a lot of ground.
Banishment: This spell is pretty effective for taking a boss or one strong enemy out of a fight
while your party focuses on the rest of the enemies, and it’s very, very useful against outsiders.
Do note though that there are a couple other spells at the same level that can do something
similar: Polymorph and Otiluke’s Resilient Sphere. These spells don’t have the benefit against
outsiders but they have other strengths.
Blight: So, slightly more damage than Fireball. Against a single target. For a 4th level slot.
Which does max damage against plant creatures, which is as well all know the most common
enemy type. Amazing.
Charm Monster: So this is Charm Person, but three levels higher, and now you can charm
monsters as well as humanoids. If that’s really what you’re into, go for it, but I don’t think it’s
worth an extra three levels.
Confusion: A tiny AOE crowd control spell whose targets have a chance of being able to do
whatever they want and who get to repeat the saving throw at the end of every turn. Cast
Hypnotic Pattern or Fear instead; they’re lower level and much more potent.
Conjure Minor Elementals: This seems like okay minionmancy. Unlike Summon Lesser
Demons you get to actually control the elementals which is obviously a plus. Do note though
that the casting time is one minute, which prevents you from casting this in combat, so this is
only really useful if you know you’re starting a dungeon crawl.
Control Water: Powerful in its circumstance but obviously circumstantial. Maybe take this if
you’re playing in a water-based campaign.
Dimension Door: This is the most potent teleportation spell before Teleport. It’s a fairly high
level spell, but the value of being able to get out of dodge reliably, with an ally no less, can’t be
understated. You can also use this for nefarious purposes since it’s quieter than Thunder Step.
Similar to Thunder Step, you can take objects with you, so combo this with Greater Inivisibility to
steal anything by invisibly teleporting in right next to what you want and then teleporting out with
it. To anyone nearby the object, it’ll look as though it just disappeared without warning.
Elemental Bane: Maybe this is kind of okay if someone in your party has a Frost Brand or
Flame Tongue? But even then, the extra damage will only be triggered once per turn. What am I
missing that makes this better than Dragon’s Breath or Melf’s Minute Meteors? This is just bad.
Evard’s Black Tentacles: This is Web, but two levels higher, and it does a bit of damage every
round. Is the damage worth two more levels? Hard to say. Something to note is that if you have
another caster in the party, this comboed with Web is nearly impossible to get out of.
Fabricate: This spell is okay if you have a tool proficiency or two (Smith’s Tools are especially
useful for this.) Plate the party’s weapons in silver and adamantine, I suppose. Other than that
it’s surprisingly tough to think of good uses for this spell.
Fire Shield: For a 4th level slot, no concentration, get resistance to fire or cold damage and do
a little damage whenever hit with a melee attack. This isn’t a very potent effect, but there’s no
concentration required, so it’s okay.
Greater Invisibility: A decent buff in combat, especially if you have a rogue who will love
getting sneak attack easily. Note that Counterspell only works on spellcasters who can be seen
casting a spell, so this will let you win Counterspell battles. Out of combat this is of course useful
for nefarious purposes and being able to still cast other spells (such as teleports) is very nice.
Hallucinatory Terrain: Use ten minutes and a 4th level slot to make terrain look like other
terrain! Anyone who actually enters the terrain can easily tell that it’s an illusion, though.
Ice Storm: Oh fun, another inferior Fireball. This one makes the area of effect difficult terrain
until the end of your next turn. How game-changing.
Leomund’s Secret Chest: There might be a creative use for this that I just haven’t thought of
yet. Please tell me if you think of one. You can summon and dismiss the chest at will, there’s no
limit on how many Secret Chests you can have... I mean, you could store arcane foci and a
spare spellbook and such in it, which is decent insurance for if you get captured, but other than
that I can’t see much use for this, to be honest. Also it’s expensive.
Locate Creature: Most of the time Locate Object will suffice for two levels lower.
Mordenkainen’s Faithful Hound: This spell has so many limitations! 8 hour duration (I
expected this to be at least 24 hours like Private Sanctum,) ends if you move more than 100
feet away from it, and it can’t move at all. If you’re really worried about invisible creatures, cast
Alarm, the first level ritual which is better than this 4th level spell.
Mordenkainen’s Private Sanctum: Having a base with a permanent Private Sanctum might be
prudent, although it would take forever to set up I don’t think it makes this spell worth taking
from leveling up.
Otiluke’s Resilient Sphere: This spell can be used to either take an enemy out of a fight or
save someone (possibly yourself.) For taking an enemy out of a fight, the advantage that this
spell has over Banishment is that the sphere can be picked up and moved around, meaning you
can drop it off of a cliff or into lava or have someone fly it up a thousand feet and then end the
spell. As far as saving someone goes, this spell makes for a pretty darn absolute defense. You
could probably go to the Negative Energy Plane with this spell and come back okay.
Phantasmal Killer: Frightened is an okay debuff, but it’s unclear what exactly the source of the
fear is; if it’s you, that’s not bad, but if it’s the illusory manifestations of it’s deepest fears, then
presumably the target isn’t limited in its movement. 4d10 is okayish damage to repeat every
turn. Finally, the target gets to repeat the save every turn. I don’t think this is worth a 4th level
slot and concentration.
Polymorph: Hoo boy, now this i s a good spell. You can of course Polymorph an enemy into a
clam/barnacle/starfish/whatever and throw them off a cliff/into lava /into your Bag of Devouring,
or leave them for last while you finish off other foes, similar to how you would use Banishment
or Otiluke’s Resilient Sphere. The more powerful use is to turn an ally into a Giant Ape or a
Tyrannosaurus Rex. Remember, a creature of CR X is meant to be a challenge for a level X
party of four players. Meaning, your new T-Rex ally is probably strong enough to be a challenge
for all of the rest of your party combined. And once their 136 hit points are lost, now they’re back
to however many hit points they had before. This is especially useful for popping a low-health
ally back up.
Sickening Radiance: This is only powerful if you can get enemies to stay in the area for more
than one round. Otherwise, not worth it. Overall, circumstantial.
Stone Shape: Circumstantial. Can be used as a sort of mini Passwall in dungeons. Somewhat
more flexible than Passwall, which is nice.
Stoneskin: Use your concentration, a 4th level slot, and 100 gp to gain resistance to
bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage, which is kind of okay, except that it’s only
nonmagical bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing, so not great.
Storm Sphere: Repeatable okay damage in an area, basically. It takes two rounds of repeating
the lightning strike for this spell to match the damage of Fireball against a single target. I think
you’re probably better off putting out some kind of crowd control or action-denial and then
casting Fireball.
Vitriolic Sphere: A slightly more complicated Fireball that does a little more damage. I don’t
think this will usually be worth a 4th level slot unless your campaign is pretty
one-encounter-per-day and you have slots to spare.
Wall of Fire: Except in niche cases you’re probably not going to get much more damage out of
this than out of a well-placed Fireball, and the fact that it can be walked through makes this not
all that effective as a wall spell. Still, there might be situations (like in a hallway) where you can
get decent use out of this spell.
Watery Sphere: Now this spell is kind of cool. It gives you a way to move restrained creatures
and a way to get more creatures into the sphere. Overall, a decent crowd control effect. The
drawbacks are that it requires a Strength save, it gives the restrained creatures chances to
repeat the save at the ends of their turns, and that it has size limitations on creatures it can
engulf.
5th Level Spells

5th level spells are the next big step up after 3rd level spells, mainly because of two spells: Wall
of Force and Animate Objects. 5th level slots are also pretty much always going to be in short
supply since you don’t get a third one until 15th level, so you’ll want to save them for big fights
or desperate situations.
Animate Objects: This spell does incredible damage. Most of the time, you’re going to want to
animate 10 tiny objects, which gives you 10 attacks with +8 to hit that do 1d4+4 damage each.
Assuming hits that’s 65 average damage, every round. Now, some of the objects are going to
miss, but even then, you’ve essentially added another Fighter to the party. Something else to
note is that this spell indirectly makes for a potent movement-denial effect: if the enemy that
these objects surrounded and attacked last round moves out of their reach, it gets to take 10
opportunity attacks! The main weakness of this spell is that it deals nonmagical bludgeoning
damage, which is sometimes resisted, but if you’re going up against enemies that you think
likely won’t resist it this spell does insane damage.
Bigby’s Hand: Man, this spell is fun. There are so many options for what to do with it each turn,
especially with the control options, forceful, grasping, and interposing hand. For Evokers if they
Overchannel this spell, they can do 37 damage each round with the Clenched Fist option.
Finally, using the fist only uses your Bonus Action each turn, so you can throw out
non-concentration spells like Blindness/Deafness on the same turns that you use the Hand.
Cloudkill: Whoopee, another damage over time in an area spell. This one deals Poison
damage, which a ton of monsters are immune to. It gives Constitution saves for half damage,
which a ton of monsters are good at. The damage is decent, but this spell as a whole is only
worth your concentration if you can combo it with some way to keep enemies in place such as
Forcecage. Even then Wall of Fire will probably do the trick for a lower level slot.
Cone of Cold: This spell does only slightly more damage than an upcast Fireball. It does this
damage in a wider area, but cones are hard to place effectively. Regardless, with spells like
Animate Objects and Wall of Force at 5th level, 5th level slots are far too valuable to spend on
blasts.
Conjure Elemental: With a casting time of 1 minute and a duration of up to one hour, this spell
is decent as something to keep up during a dungeon crawl as long as you’re sure that you can
maintain concentration. The most potent use of this spell, however, only becomes available at
higher levels once you have access to Planar Binding, which will allow you to bind conjured
elementals to your service. There’s also some potential for upcasting and utility with this spell:
cast at 6th level, you can conjure an Invisible Stalker, whose Faultless Tracker ability can let
you find almost anything. Note that Conjure Elemental is not a Divination spell and Faultless
Tracker is not spell but a creature’s ability, so this use can get past spells like Nondetection and
Mordenkainen’s Private Sanctum that protect against divinations.
Contact Other Plane: This divination is a ritual, and one that can be quite helpful at that. You
get to ask 5 questions and get one-word answers from a mysterious entity. Note that while
“yes,” “no,” “maybe,” et cetera are the examples given for answers, the answers from the entity
are not limited to this. This means that, for example, if you want to find someone, you could ask
“relative to myself, in what cardinal direction is so-and-so” for one question, and then ask “how
far away is so-and-so in meters” with your second question. Once you start asking questions
this way you start to realize that 5 questions per cast is actually a lot. The main drawback of
course is the risk of insanity, but with a Paladin in the party and the Resilient (Constitution) feat
it’s possible to make the saving throw trivial at higher levels. Also note that you can cast this
spell just before you end a long rest to do so without risk.
Control Winds: Well, there are a few effects you can make with this spell, but they’re all pretty
darn underwhelming. The Gusts effect seems flat-out worse than the 2nd-level spell Gust of
Wind.
Creation: Let me know if you can think of a creative use for this; I haven’t thought of one.
Making whatever you want sounds kind of useful, except that there are actually a lot of
restrictions on what you can make, and you’re using a 5th level spell slot to do it. No thanks.
Danse Macabre: If you’re a necromancer and raising corpses is really your jam, this spell can
give you some pretty buffed ones. It does use your concentration and a 5th level slot though
which is unfortunate. Note that this can potentially be combined with Animate Dead to buff your
skeletons when combat starts.
Dawn: 4d10 is not great damage for this level, even if you get to repeat it. Being able to move
the area as a bonus action makes this at least better than Cloudkill, though. Also note that
unlike other light sells (such as Daylight, oddly enough,) the light produced by this spell is
actually sunlight, so this can be useful against vampires.
Dominate Person: This spell is pretty potent in the situations where it’s useful. The main
downside is that it will often not be useful in combat because of the humanoid limitation, but
humanoids will be the most fun to dominate anyways. Still, it is a bit situational.
Dream: This spell can be used to gradually kill a big bad through exhaustion, so long as they
are on the same plane of existence as you, which could potentially be quite powerful. Other than
that it’s pretty much useless; use Sending to send messages.
Enervation: Looks like Witch Bolt’s big brother. This spell is just as pathetic. 4d8 is awful
damage, like Witch Bolt this spell is easy to break, and the healing isn’t enough to make up for
that.
Far Step: I feel that there aren’t many situations in which this spell is significantly more useful
than Fly. It’s a pretty good way to escape a high-security prison or something, but by the time
you have access to this spell you probably have a dozen ways to escape high-security prisons.
Geas: This spell is only really useful against ordinary people who are weak enough to be killed
by 5d10 psychic damage. Anyone else can shrug that off, since it can only be triggered once
per day. Too situational.
Hold Monster: This is of course the 2nd level spell Hold Person, except that it can target
monsters. This is good for Enchanters and maybe in parties with a Paladin or Rogue who will
really benefit from the auto-critting, but the effect gives a saving throw every round so this isn’t a
reliable use of your 5th level slot.
Immolation: Huh, so Fireball damage against a single target, who gets to repeat a saving throw
every round to avoid taking half Fireball damage, and if they succeed the spell ends. Also this
uses your concentration. Wow, utterly abysmal.
Infernal Calling: This might be another good spell to use in conjunction with Planar Binding, but
otherwise you’re probably better off casting Summon Greater Demon. This spell is just too
unpredictable.
Legend Lore: This looks like a pretty limited Divination as far as they go, but it can be
reasonably useful when it comes up. Note that the way it’s worded, you could theoretically cast
this spell repeatedly to gain lots of information about something, since each time you cast it you
will know more than you did the last time and so you should get more detailed information.
Mislead: So basically Invisibility combined with a very specific Major Image. Useful for
misleading someone, I suppose, but I can’t see this coming up very often. Definitely not worth
your concentration in combat.
Modify Memory: Okay, I like this spell. Situational, obviously, but very potent. Lots of potential
for creative use. Consider having a Simulacrum modify your own memory of a crime so that you
won’t be found out by Zone of Truth, Detect Thoughts, and so on. Or, if your spellbook is lost,
gain a perfect recollection of its contents when you prepared your spells that morning so that
you can copy them all down in a new spellbook.
Negative Energy Flood: Do piddly damage against a single target, and if it kills them they rise
up as a zombie that isn’t even under your control.
Passwall: Exactly what it says on the tin. This can occasionally be pretty useful, but
teleportation spells like Dimension Door will be more versatile overall. Note that you may be
able to get through non-stone/wood/plaster surfaces by first coating them with plaster. Also note
that this spell is pretty effective for sinking a ship.
Planar Binding: Cast at 5th level this isn’t all that great, but at higher levels when you can
extend the duration with higher level slots this is a very powerful way to gain many
no-concentration minions. Go ahead and skip this spell if that isn’t what you’re into, but this spell
can be low-key campaign-breaking. Note that some DMs may rule that if this spell extends the
duration of concentration spell such as Conjure Elemental, the new duration still requires
concentration. If that is the case then you’ll have to use Glyph of Warding to cast the first spell
without concentration.
Rary’s Telepathic Bond: At higher levels it can be nice to always have this up during political
intrigue, dungeon-crawling, et cetera so that you never have to worry about inter-party
communication. Communication is powerful. Also note that this is pretty much Tongues as a
ritual.
Scrying: The quintessential Divination spell. This is certainly a powerful way to gather
information about the big bad or persons of interest, although note that it may be blocked by
anti-divination measures such as Mordenkainen’s Private Sanctum. Still, depending on how
much downtime your party gets, this can be a great way to gather information before embarking
on an adventure since you can cast this repeatedly to make sure the save is failed.
Seeming: This spell can be pretty fun for shenanigans, although I’m not sure it’s worth a 5th
level slot. Still, depending on your DM this can be useful in or out of combat.
Skill Empowerment: Naysayers will say that Enhance Ability does this better, but something of
note is that advantage on skill checks is actually much easier to come across than expertise.
Advantage can be granted by anybody giving the Help action. By using the Help action
combined with this spell, a party member can have a substantial boost to, say, an important
Deception check. During a combat-heavy adventuring day that might not be worth it, but on a
day focused on other activities it can be.
Steel Wind Strike: This spell is pretty badass so it’s a shame that it’s not all that great. The
30-foot range makes this tough to use effectively and the damage isn’t great for the level. Note
that this is the only teleportation spell without a verbal component, making it useable in Silenced
Forcecages and such.
Synaptic Static: So, a psychic fireball that gives a small non-concentration debuff to those who
fail the saving throw. I don’t think the small debuff makes this worth a 5th level slot.
Telekinesis: A decently versatile spell, although Bigby’s hand is probably better, requiring only
a bonus action to use each turn and having more options available in combat. This spell can
restrain and move around enemies, of course, and it can do a little damage by lifting them in the
air and dropping them, but consider using it to disarm enemies instead; some powerful enemies
are pretty much crippled by being disarmed. Let’s see that Death Knight try to kill your party with
unarmed strikes.
Teleportation Circle: Long-range transportation is something that some parties tend to rely on
the Wizard for, and this spell is probably the most efficient option for that, given that Teleport is
a 7th level spell.
Transmute Rock: The effects here aren’t super potent, but this spell does not require
concentration, which opens up a lot of options for combinations with other spells. For example,
consider combining Rock to Mud with Web or Evard’s Black Tentacles, resulting in an area that
is pretty darn hard to escape.
Wall of Force: This spell takes potentially multiple enemies out of a fight with no saving throw.
This spell can divide a Hard encounter into two Easy ones, or at higher levels trap an enemy
while your Simulacrum (or another player) throws a Wall of Fire, Evard’s Black Tentacles, or
other damage-over-time effect onto them, resulting in an autowin. This spell can basically be
your trump card; it just changes the battlefield so much.
Wall of Light: So, make a wall that enemies can walk through but which does a little damage
and can blind enemies. You can also use your action to destroy part of the wall and do some
more bad damage. Looking at this spell after looking at Wall of Force makes me sad.
Wall of Stone: A pretty potent wall spell that is similar to Wall of Force. There are drawbacks
and advantages to this spell over Wall of Force, but the big drawback is that enclosed enemies
get to make a Dexterity saving throw to use their reaction to move up to half of their movement
and escape. Wall of Force’s ability to shut down enemies with no saving throw makes it the
better spell by far despite this spell being pretty good.
6th Level Spells

Arcane Gate:
Chain Lightning:
Circle of Death:
Contingency:
Create Homunculus:
Create Undead:
Disintegrate:
Drawmij’s Instant Summons:
Eyebite:
Flesh to Stone:
Freezing Sphere:
Globe of Invulnerability:
Guards and Wards:
Investiture of Flame:
Investiture of Ice:
Investiture of Stone:
Investiture of Wind:
Magic Jar:
Mass Suggestion:
Mental Prison:
Move Earth:
Otiluke’s Freezing Sphere:
Otiluke’s Irresistible Dance:
Programmed Illusion:
Scatter:
Soul Cage:
Sunbeam:
Tenser’s Transformation:
True Seeing:
Wall of Ice:
7th Level Spells

Crown of Stars:
Delayed Blast Fireball:
Etherealness:
Finger of Death:
Forcecage:
Mirage Arcane:
Mordenkainen’s Sword:
Mordenkainen’s Magnificent Mansion:
Plane Shift:
Power Word: Pain:
Prismatic Spray:
Project Image:
Reverse Gravity:
Sequester:
Simulacrum:
Symbol:
Teleport:
Whirlwind:

Ozwick's Guide To Omnipotence: Spells For Creative 5e Wizards

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Ozwick's Guide To Omnipotence: Spells For Creative 5e Wizards

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Side note: I’m currently building a setting called the Wishbound World, where creative uses of

A note on DM-dependent spell uses:

1st Level Spells

2nd Level Spells

3rd Level Spells

4th Level Spells

5th Level Spells

6th Level Spells

Drawmij’s Instant Summons:

Guards and Wards:

Otiluke’s Freezing Sphere:

Otiluke’s Irresistible Dance:

7th Level Spells

Delayed Blast Fireball:

Mordenkainen’s Magnificent Mansion:

Power Word: Pain:

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