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

I’ve explored all the schools of magic, subclasses for every class, feats and a few other categories of content for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons homebrew material found at D&D Beyond. In this post I’m checking out homebrew psychic spells for 5E D&D. You’ll find over 1,820 of these at DDB. 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.

Psychic 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 evocation 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 1,820 psychic 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 psychic spells

1. Most Vicious Mockery (7th Level). Bit of a mixed bag on this one. I’m not surprised in the least to find a spell related to vicious mockery to start things off, which I felt excited to see more about. But then I wasn’t. A requirement to “learn a deep insecurity or humiliating secret about the target” eviscerates the usefulness of this spell, which deals negligible damage along with a lingering narrative effect. The spell also severely hampers the target in combat, which seems weird since if they’re killed (and let’s face it, it’s D&D so probably) the long lasting effect is rendered moot. And there’s a 500 gp material component cost, which isn’t consumed but is tailored to the target so it kind of is anyway.
2. Glimpse of Beyond (4th Level). Deals psychic damage, incorporates Madness rules, has higher level scaling and includes some evocative spell description. This designer nails it across the board.
3. Acidic Denunciation (Cantrip). I feel like either I’m missing something or this is kinda fruitless bookkeeping. If a target fails the save they take 1d4 psychic damage and then another 1d4 at the beginning of the caster’s next turn. Why not just 2d4 and be done with it?
4. Gaze of Judgement (1st Level). Klugdy and in need of some polish? Yes. But overall a neat approach to alignment-based results.
5. Arcane Rune (Cantrip). I dig this very much! Essentially a weak glyph of warding but it’s mobile and there’s a harmless option too wherein the caster knows when a creature reads the inscribed runes.
6. Illusory Orbs of Annihilation (Cantrip). Another case of neat spell mechanics, this time with an additional effect if the caster rolls a critical hit on the spell attack roll.
7. Shadow Scythe (4th Level). Yet another clever spell design. This creates a hefty counterpart to shadow blade, which intrigues me quite a bit when it comes to character builds. I wonder what an equivalent 2nd level spell would look like?
8. Blood Curse (Cantrip). I had to think about this for a moment and then I came around to appreciating the balance between dealing psychic damage to yourself to achieve a greater effect and I’m on board.
9. Cruelty of Nature (9th Level). I’m not even gonna attempt to assess the mechanical balance here but my impression overall is this spell is very creative and interesting. It seems very powerful but it does require concentration. I’m not the biggest fan of game mechanics and effects that require round by round bookkeeping though. Anecdotally this also feels like one of those spells designed for a villainous NPC to use against players.
10. Knowledge Extraction (1st Level). I like the concept but the execution not so much. Right off the bat if you the spell attack roll fails the spell slot isn’t used? Come on, that’s just BS. It deals very little damage but there is an added effect. I get the gist of the effect but the design language is far from polished and feels a bit too loosey goosey even for me!

Top 10 most viewed psychic spells

1. Wrathful Smite (Revised) (1st Level). This designer 100% wants to do something else with their bonus action and designed this spell to accomplish this goal. There’s a reason all the smite spells share common qualities and this circumvents them.
2. Glimpse of Beyond (4th Level).
3. Blood Curse (Cantrip).
4. Mind Shatter (9th Level). Basically feeblemind except significantly more damage and the creature cannot identify its friends, follow them or even protect them. Meh.
5. Psychic Blade (Cantrip). Not bad. A bit of psychic damage and some anti-spellcaster utility to make concentrating on spells a lot more difficult.
6. Mind Wipe (8th Level). Villain spell. The mechanical language needs a tremendous amount of work but in short it straight up steals a creature’s features and traits and condenses them into a liquid anyone can drink and gain them. There’s a hefty toll of psychic damage and conditions for the caster and the target but at the end of the day outrageously too powerful.
7. Memory Knight (7th Level). Another one in need of some polish and if I’m honest a bit of an uptick in power but overall this is fantastic. basically it creates an illusion of a dead creature the caster shared a strong connection with, which manifests as a protector creature on the battlefield. Now that’s evocative!
8. Most Vicious Mockery (7th Level).
9. Bad Way to Die (3rd Level). A single target fear with the addition of psychic damage is a terrific, solid spell. It’s kinda like the phantasmal spells but without the rigmarole.
10. Arcane Rune (Cantrip).

Top 10 most added psychic spells

1. Most Vicious Mockery (7th Level).
2. Shadow Scythe (4th Level).
3. Crush Mind (3rd Level). A single target synaptic static gets the job done.
4. Glimpse of Beyond (4th Level).
5. Blood Curse (Cantrip).
6. Bad Way to Die (3rd Level).
7. Cruelty of Nature (9th Level).
8. Gaze of Judgement (1st Level).
9. Final Hour (9th Level). Decent. It deals a lot of damage and puts the target on the clock towards their imminent demise unless taken care of quickly. Another spell I imagine was designed for a villainous NPC to cast on the adventurers.
10. Chaos Blast (Cantrip). A watered down chaos bolt. Not very exciting except to say it’s a chaos themed cantrip and a solid addition to available combat cantrips. I suspect a lot of players would love this spell.

Psychic spells rising to the top

Now it’s time to consider these 19 spells and share some takeaways. As a 5E D&D DM, player, designer and fan this part is particularly useful. To start off I’m not surprised to find several spells I suspect the creators made for villainous NPCs. Usually these incorporate the kind of severely debilitating effects much more impactful on a player character over time than, say, a bad guy with about a 60 second life span once initiative gets rolled. I don’t fancy these because if they’re designed solely for an NPC then it’s better to simply create a trait for the stat block.

Seeing a wide range of spell levels came as a pleasant surprise. The spread of homebrew spells at DDB is like an inverted bell curve with heavy emphasis on cantrips and 8th-9th level spells. Don’t get me wrong — there’s still a majority in that bucket here — but it felt like a bit less than I typically see.

Looking at homebrew content in a codified-adjacent way like damage type presents an interesting perspective too. Compared to something like the school of magic it highlights the broad range of possibilities. Whereas all abjuration or illusion spells share a commonality there’s a huge spectrum of interpretation for any particular type of damage.

Quite a few of these psychic spells really impress me. Glimpse of beyond makes me want to cast this spell in a game and see what happens as a result. I dig how gaze of judgement makes alignment relevant. For the right kind of character arcane rune is fabulous and for another right kind of character shadow scythe holds tremendous potential. At the end of the day though memory knight gets the blue ribbon from me. As a pretty high level spell I imagine the spellcaster’s long journey of adventure makes it incredibly memorable to cast. I know from my experience there’s so many campaigns where something like this would add some really awesome drama to a scenario.

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 — Using a psychic spell, a wizard battles a troglodyte underground. [Art by Andrew Mar]

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