Blog

Today we’re talking about Go to D&D Wizard spells for tier one. First level through third level, there’s a bunch of great D&D wizard spells and we’ve got it broken down into different categories.

Now what we’re going to do is we’re going to look at some 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons spells. We will break them down to attack spells, buff spells, defense spells, utility spells, and overlooked spells. We will also throw in a bonus category- iconic spells. There is our five different categories. Lets get started and have a little bit of fun with this.

First we’re going to read the descriptions of the spells and talk about the choices we’ve made. So we’re going to start off with our go to attack D&D spell. It could also be considered an iconic D&D spell as well. For this one we’re going to look at magic missile and you know, magic missile is a staple in D&D.

We feel it’s one of the best attack spells for this first tier because it does force damage, which so few things are resistant too. It’s an auto hit spell no attack roll, no saving throw. But if you needed to get damaged dished out, nothing’s going to do it better. Magic missile gives you the ability to hit multiple targets or focus fire a single for. It’s a scalable spell meaning you can pump it up with higher level spell slots to do more damage. I have played higher level wizard fighter multiclass that was fighting monsters that were just resistant to different energy types, that were making their saving throws, and they were hard to hit.

So I used action surge and gave them a double dose of magic missile using higher level spell slots. It guaranteed being more effective and that’s a great thing.  It does not scale in comparison to the amount of damage of other higher level spells, but as you said, the guaranteed damage made it worth it. Absolutely.

Next are go to is a buff D&D spell. In my opinion, one of the best buff spells in the game at any level is haste. Haste as a great spell from a multitude of reasons. You know, that’s going to give you more options to do in combat. It’s going to give you that improved AC. It’s just a great spell all around.

It’s even better if you don’t use it on yourself unless you’re a Gish type character, but use it instead on the barbarian, paladin, or fighter, those folks that are up front taking punishment from the enemies and also dishing out damage. It’s just a phenomenal spell so we definitely had to put it in there as the best D&D Spell for buffs.

Next we are going to jump to our defense spell and for that we went with tried and true. I think shield hands down is one of the best defensive spells in the game.

The Shield spell gives the ability to improve your armor class as a reaction. There are many times the DM gives you a to hit number “I hit AC 17” well if my AC is 14 but with shield I can bump it up by five. Turning a hit into a miss. You’ve got the ability to raise your armor class that is going to last until your next turn. That’s a plus and it makes your immune and magic missile. Which is one of the only ways you can actually stop magic missile in 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons.

For our next category we’ve got Spells a D&D wizard might overlooked. Both Ted and I weigh in on this one.

Here’s a hidden gem that does a decent amount of damage from the Elemental Evil Player’s Companion.There’s a spell that I overlooked before and it’s called ice knife. A, you create a Shard of ice and flinging it one creature within range. You make a ranged spell attack against the target on a hit. The target takes 1d10 piercing damage. Okay, that’s not as good as a firebolt cantrip. Regardless of hit or miss the target and each creature within five feet of it must succeed on a dexterity saving throw or take 2d6 cold damage.

Cold damage doesn’t have as many creatures that are resistant to it as fire. If everything goes your way, you’ve got the ability to dish out between 3 to 22 points of damage. That is certainly a higher scale than magic missile. It’s also another spell that you can pump up so you can do more damage if you need to. And if something happens to be vulnerable to cold or it has a bad dex save, maybe this is something you would want to use.

For our second overlooked D&D spell we went with catapult. I actually got inspired with this spell while watching a taking 20 video where Cody was talking about overlook D&D spells. By itself it’s not a bad spell.

You get a decent range on that spell any object within 60 feet of you can then fling 90 feet and it does 3d8 bludgeoning damage. It’s also scalable. You can increase the damage by pumping it up. But when I was watching Cody’s video, it really got me thinking about an alchemists character. They use alchemy supplies like acid and an alchemist fire. Both of them, when they hit something, they break and they do their damage. 3d8 points of bludgeoning damage to the object and the person being hit. To me, that’s going to be an auto break and they’re going to also take the alchemist fire damage or the acid damage. Obviously you’re going to want to check with your DM and see how they’re going to rule on this. But personally as a DM, I would have to say that these effects would stack and they would take both damages.

You know when you look at these kinds of things, clearly you are using your spell slot and you’re using the consumable object. Other GMs are going to make their determination.

Let’s face it as a GM, if that player is an alchemist and they’ve always got all these things on them that means they’re susceptible to having whatever mishaps can occur. But it’s an interesting way to do it. It’s a little bit different. So that was an overlooked spell we wanted to include.

Now we’re going to the go to utility spell. In every game that I’ve run or I’ve played in almost every time someone takes this D&D spell, especially if they’re a ritual caster.

Leomunds Tiny Hut is basically saying I’m going to rest for my eight hours for my long rest and never have to worry about having that rest disrupted. You’re safe, you’re protected, you can have a bunch of people in it. It lasts the eight hours that you need. It’s a ritual spell. You don’t even have to use a spell slot if your a ritual caster.

This is an amazing utility spell that may not even really cost your resources to use. All right, so this has been used in a lot of different games and when you’ve got a caster who has made it to fifth level, they’ve got access to third level spells and are a ritual caster they are going to this one. Forget random encounters in the middle of the night. Forget worrying about sleeping in the cold, sleeping in the heat, or sleeping in the wet. You are comfortable, you are dry. Say Goodbye to not being able to sleep through the night.

In theory it sounds like the wizard could have you covered even in an underwater adventure with this spell. You probably can even cast it underwater in theory it does say it’s dry. Now mind you, you do have to have the ability to use verbal components while casting it underwater. You’ll need to be able to be breathing water for it to happen. But, well it would be a nice respite as long as the caster can breathe underwater to get off the Leomund’s Tiny Hut spell. Jeremy Crawford rules, if you cast the spell by holding your breath,you then lose your breath. The casting time on this is one minute. Even longer if you’re going to ritually cast the spell. That would be a bit of a problem. You would drown before you got it off. But if you had the way to, breath underwater while you cast you could then in theory do it. That would extend your resources while you’re in an underwater adventure.

Our last go to spell is going to be our bonus iconic D&D spell.

Fireball is such the iconic spell.

I can’t say I don’t know any wizards who didn’t take fireball when reaching 5th level, because it does happen. But for the most part, every wizard that you know fireball is on their list. Even when the designers of 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons talk about game balance, they often talk about the spell fireball cause they said “Some things in the game are just meant to be better and fireball statistically is better than the other spells.” Bright streak flashes from your pointing finger to a point you choose Within range and then blossoms with a low roar into an explosion of flame.

Each creature in a 20 foot radius sphere centered on that point must make a dexterity saving throw. A target takes 8d6 fire damage on a failed save, or half as much on a successful one. The fire spreads around corners that ignites flammable objects in that area that aren’t being worn or carried. You can of course spend a higher level spell slot to add an additional d6. It’s an action casting time. It’s instantaneous and the range is 150 feet away. It’s got verbal, semantic, and material component, which is a tiny ball of bat, guano and sulfur as it always has been throughout all the editions of Dungeons and Dragons. Fireball is an iconic spelled granite fire is one of the most resisted damage types in the game. But that being said when you combine the amount of damage you’re doing and the range of the spell it is hard to go wrong with fireball. I don’t know, a wizard that doesn’t live to get to fifth level so that they can get those third level D&D wizard spells. Who doesn’t want to drop that fireball first fireball.

It’s been a thing since for as long as I’ve been playing in the game. You know, lightning bolt is, is nice. It does the same amount of damage but it is a line effect and very rarely does the line allow you to get as many targets as a fireball. And you know, pulling out a fireball template and putting it on a, on a battle map, it’s like, wow, I’m going to be going to able to hit all of these things with 8d6 points of fire damage. It’s crazy. And as we stated  fireballs are just impressive.

Let us know what your to picks are for tier one spells in 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons in the comments below.