Top 10 5E D&D Homebrew Divination Spells by a Factor of Three

Glimpses of the future may have unveiled this week’s look at homebrew spells for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. There’s currently over 3,880 homebrew divination spells at D&D Beyond so while Nerdarchists Dave and Ted study up on homebrew Arcane Traditions for 5E D&D at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel I’m revealing hidden information in this post. We get a kick out of checking out the 5E D&D content folks come up with and sharing their homebrew creations. (There’s lots of these posts whether for homebrew subclasses, magic items, spells, feats and more floating around for the curious.) Let’s get into it.

Divination spells at D&D Beyond

Before getting started it’s important to note you can create homebrew content for private use and share your homebrew content publicly at DDB at no cost — there’s no subscription required to access these services. However if you want to add any of the homebrew divination spells mentioned below or any other homebrew content you come across to your 5E D&D collection you must subscribe at the Hero Tier or above. There’s a lot you can do at DDB for free. Check out what you can do here.

The DDB homebrew collection uses several statistics to track entries. Views shows how many eyeballs any particular homebrew creation received, Adds shows the number of times a creation was added to someone’s collection and Rating is an upvote/downvote system. Since there are over 3,880 divination spells in the collection I’m going to share the top 10 highest rated, most viewed and most added selections and to see what’s out there along with any crossover between these three lists.

Top 10 highest rating divination spells

1. Test Strike (Cantrip). I totally thought this would be a permutation of true strike but it is not (thankfully). Instead it’s a really neat spell with static damage and divulges important information about the target. The language could use some polish but otherwise off to a great start!
2. Speed Read (1st level). The intention here is solid but the effect is too open to interpretation and subjectivity. This also feels like it would be more at home as a transmutation spell.
3. Academic Anguish (Cantrip). If I’m honest I’m experiencing academic anguish trying to wrap my head around when and why this would be useful and how it’s so highly rated. If you want to deal psychic damage with a cantrip try mind sliver instead.
4. Warp Sight (Cantrip). Like speed read this feels like it ought to be a transmutation spell and also like that spell the effects are too vague.
5. Allana’s Library Rats (1st level). I’m beginning to see a pattern emerge with these divination spells. I’ll keep an arcane eye as this develops but as regards this spell I kind of appreciate the intent but at the same time it seems too powerful compared to higher level spells along the same lines like find traps and locate object.
6. Minor Divination (Cantrip). The thing to keep in mind with cantrips is they can be cast at will without using a spell slot and without being prepared in advance. So while it might seem minor to peek into someone’s mind and glean one fact about them from a list of potential pieces of information a spellcaster could learn everything on the list of possibilities in half a minute. Oddly the target must be a willing creature though, which from my perspective turns this from much too powerful to essentially useless.
7. Prophecy (9th level). Finally a higher level spell! I’d probably tweak this to have a duration because of the extremely potent effect but conceptually it’s a terrific spell. This does have the feel of a spell created for an NPC though to stick it to a player character, which I generally feel is a poor motivation for creation.
8. Abacus (Cantrip). An Intelligence check seems much more appropriate to achieve the effect of this spell. Using divination magic to reveal information so easily obtained by literally anyone makes me wonder what’s the point.
9. Assimilate Knowledge (2nd level). A lot of these spells come across as magical shortcuts for Dungeon Master lore dumps and again this feels more like transmutation in the sense the caster isn’t revealing information but rather altering the properties of themselves to get easily obtained information more quickly. It’s a subtle distinction but a valid one.
10. Last Remembrance (2nd level). Finishing up with a winner! I like this spell for several reasons. It’s definitely magical divination so it stays on brand, it feels appropriately leveled and it clearly defines the effect mechanically and narratively. Plus it’s just a terrific effect I could see getting a lot of value from in games. I’m impressed!

Top 10 most viewed divination spells

1. Academic Anguish (Cantrip).
2. Tarot Reading (2nd level). Too many qualifiers from the get go turned me off. I’m not even sure what this spell is supposed to do if I’m honest and a DM faced with a character casting this spell would almost certainly (and rightly) feel confused.
3. Speed Read (1st level).
4. Turn/Destroy Undead (5th level). I’m gonna assume this was created for some purpose other than spellcasting, like as a way to incorporate Channel Divinity: Turn Undead onto a character sheet in D&D Beyond for some particular reason or need.
5. Test Strike (Cantrip).
6. Detect Temporal Anomaly (Cantrip). I come across these all the time while writing these Top 10 Homebrew posts. This is meant to accompany a Chronomancer Arcane Tradition designed for a specific campaign along with 50+ chronomancy spells, which aren’t curated anywhere. Most of the related content I’ve encountered is really noodly and while it may make perfect sense in the games it was designed for the implementation for broader use is clunky.
7. Hourglasses (1st level). Another Chronomancer spell and to illustrate the point I just made it’s really kludgy. Make sure to brush up on your FOIL and PEMDAS methods y’all.
8. Presight (Cantrip). Kinda like true strike but with a lot of unnecessary language. I’ve seen countless true strike variations and I’ve got to say despite Chronomancy’s usual drawbacks I like the secondary effect of this one quite a lot.
9. Warp Sight (Cantrip).
10. Ancient Knowledge (1st level). Another case of not feeling very much like divination and if I’m honest wasted space in a spellbook or known spells list. Also the language needs revision since there’s no such thing as a “knowledge roll.” Basically you spend 10 minutes as a ritual to get a bonus on one skill check you make within the next minute after the spell is cast.

Top 10 most added divination spells

1. Speed Read (1st level).
2. Test Strike (Cantrip).
3. Academic Anguish (Cantrip).
4. Warp Sight (Cantrip).
5. Tarot Reading (2nd level).
6. Assimilate Knowledge (2nd level).
7. Date Object (Cantrip). Part of me thought this might be a pun with a spell about a social engagement with an object. Once I spotted the disclaimer about Chronomancy I wished my initial thought had been correct.
8. Allana’s Library Rats (1st level).
9. Prophecy (9th level).
10. Presight (Cantrip).

Divination spells rising to the top

I mentioned a pattern emerging among many of the 17 spells featured here. Several of these spells share a few qualities.

• Too Vague. A lot of the language in the spell descriptions leaves out mechanical terms and instead relies much too heavily on either player or DM interpretation and subjectivity.
• Too Low Level. Spells in 5E D&D are some of the trickiest components to design. When it comes to more straightforward spells like those dealing damage it’s much easier to compare with existing official spells. With magic like divination it’s more important to look at spells of similar level to see what sort of information they reveal and how. A lot of these spells grant greater benefits than higher level magic, which is a big no-no in my book.
• NPC Intentions. There’s only a single spell from these lists where this applies but I come across the situation often enough and I’ll mention it here. A lot of high level homebrew spells make me think they were designed specifically for individual villains to use against player characters. This is poor design in my view for two reasons. Firstly it’s just vindictive because the effects are so detrimental and play like a way to stick it to the players. Secondly they’re usually a lot of hoops to just through when it would be much simpler to give the villain or some other source a feature that causes the effect.
• Misapplied School of Magic. More than a few of these feel more like transmutation spells because they’re altering a creature’s physiology in some way.

In general almost all of the homebrew spells from these Top 10 lists are low level spells from cantrips to 2nd level with but a few higher level spells usually at the highest levels like 8th-9th. Very often the low level spells including nondamaging cantrips scale with greater results from using higher level spell slots of simply by virtue of the caster being higher level. I’m not confident enough in my interpretation of this observation to share anything declaratively here but it does make me curious.

Test strike is my top pick from these lists and if I’m honest it’s about the only one. I really like the effect, which feels very much on brand for the School of Divination and a perfect cantrip for those sorts of wizards. Last remembrance also impressed me quite a bit.

5E D&D spell resources

I mention our own forays into homebrew content creation for 5E D&D several times to plant the seed in your mind. Now you’re wondering, “What kind of homebrew content do you create, Nerdarchy? I’m extremely interested!” In addition to the monthly rewards our Patreon supporters receive we’ve presented tons of material in our videos and right here at Nerdarchy the Website ready to drop right into your games too. Another place we frequently create new content for Dungeon Masters and players to drop right into games is Nerdarchy the Newsletter and you’ll also get several gifts including $9.99 in store credit so you can add whatever you like there to your own collection when you sign up. Over the years we’ve scribed over 60 new spells of our own. Here’s some places where you’ll find these spells along with other spell related stuff we’ve shared.

• Make 5E D&D Spells Your Own with Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything
• Play Your Next 5E D&D Game with Snakes on the Brain and Cast More Snake Magic Spells
• Play Your Next 5E D&D Game with Snakes on the Brain and Cast Snake Magic Spells
• Top 10 5E D&D Homebrew Force Spells by a Factor of Three
• Top 10 5E D&D Summoning Spells by a Factor of Three
• Uphold your Sacred Oath Through Paladin Oath Spells
• Beardomancy (11 new spells)
  • Beard Growth, Beard Servant, Beard Whip, Beardgury, Beardskin, Conjure Hirsute Horror, Feard, Guardian of Face, Power Word Beard, Hairotte, Transport Via Beard
• Friend of Foe Vol. 1 (1 new spell)
  • Withered Thorn Whip
• Lost Lore Vol. 1 (3 new spells)
  • Wood Warp, Swords to Sorrows, Sticks to Snakes
• Lost Lore Vol. 2 (7 new spells)
  • Spider Bite, Pack of Spiders, Nest of Spiders, Rampage of Spiders, Spectral Spider Servant, Spider Plague, Hail of Crystal Spiders
• Gaze of the Void Eye (6 new spells)
  • Darksight, Shadowstep, Darklight, Shadowtrap, Darkling’s Hand, Silhouette
• Winter Court Soiree (7 new spells)
  • Solstice Cheer, Virgin Snow, Icespike, Grasp of Winter, Cloak of Rime, Find Sleigh, Winter’s Nightmare
• Hairable Ideas (12 new spells)
  • Animate Moustache, Blessing of Samson, Cloister of Combs, Enhance Style, Friendship Bracelet, Hairball, Haircut, Hair Whip, Rain of Quills, Rapunzel’s Curse, Shroud of Hair, Sun Wukong’s Magic Hairs
• Bad Hair Day (3 new spells)
  • Godiva’s Ride, Ordo’s Binding Beard, Ordo’s Resilient Beard, Wild Web
• Chained One’s Animus (10 new spells)
  • Venomous Blade, Heart of the Pack, Creeping Fungus, Shroud of Thorns, Cloud of Spores, Root, Thorned Oath, Chained Oath, Warped Oath, Barbed Shield

*Featured image — Interpreting signs and omens, glimpsing the cosmos and understanding the threads of fate and destiny all speak to the power of divination. In 5E D&D divination spells reveal information whether in the form of secrets long forgotten, glimpses of the future, the locations of hidden things, the truth behind illusions or visions of distant people or places. [Art by Will Murai]

New videos every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel here