D&D 5E What is the most powerful spell?

I'm a big fan of Dimension Door. I'd rate it as good. I find it much more useful than death ward (a different spell you rated as good)

[MENTION=58172]Yaarel[/MENTION]

I just listed a few changes I would make.

FrogReaver said:

I consider burning hands or thunderwave some of the most useful level 1 spells at level 1. I guess that leaves me with the question of what level of wizard are you approaching these lists from?

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For now, consider the value of the spell at the level that it first becomes available. For example, Fireball at Wizard level 5.

@FrogReaver

So far

Darkvision to Setup − good call.

Burning Hands and Thunderwave are Melee Suicide, but for a character who is competent in melee, they are considered Good and Excellent, respectively. Typically, Wizards are fragile and do well to stay as far away from a threat as possible. But some Wizards are built to melee, and other mages like Bard and so on, are often competent.

Dimension Door to Good − I can see that, it was close to the cusp anyway.

Conjure Woodland to Not Bad − heh, the sobriety hurts!

Tongues − Tongues seems better as a Good or Not Bad 2nd-level spell, than as a dubious 3rd-level spell. Most creatures that can speak, can speak common. Tongues is mainly useful for spying or encountering the strange.

I have to check the difference between Tongues as a spell and Telepathy as a language (as described in the Monster Manual). They might be the same thing. If so, or if they are close enough, then flavorwise, full-on Telepathy at spell level 2 makes me happy. And it also explains how certain player races might include Telepathy as feature.

Yaarel said:

[MENTION=6795602]FrogReaver[/MENTION]

So far

Darkvision to Setup − good call.

Burning Hands and Thunderwave are Melee Suicide, but for a character who is competent in melee, they are considered Good and Excellent, respectively. Typically, Wizards are fragile and do well to stay as far away from a threat as possible. But some Wizards are built to melee, and other mages like Bard and so on, are often competent.

Dimension Door to Good − I can see that, it was close to the cusp anyway.

Conjure Woodland to Not Bad − heh, the sobriety hurts!

Tongues − Tongues seems better as a Not Bad or Good 2nd-level spell, than as a dubious 3rd-level spell. Most creatures that can speak, can speak common.

I have to check the difference between Tongues as a spell and Telepathy as a language (as described in the Monster Manual). They might be the same thing. If so, or if they are close enough, then flavorwise, full-on Telepathy at spell level 2 makes me happy. And it also explains how certain player races might include Telepathy as feature.

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Thanks. One consideration on tongues is that sometimes it's not about just hearing what the creature wants to say to you. Sometimes its about hearing what they say to their servants when they think you can't understand That probably isn't really enough to change it's position in the type of campaigns you play. I think most of my campaigns treat languages a bit different than everything speaks common. In an everything basically speak common campaign tongues is next to worthless. I'll totally agree there.

Your concept that a wizard must be built to melee to use burning hands or thunderwave well is soo counter to how I've ever seen wizards played. Casters in my group stay back but when an opportunity presents itself they are more than happy to put themselves in harms way to thunderwave or burning hands 3-4 goblins. It's nothing about them being competent in melee, it's about those spells having the power to completely turn level 1 and level 2 fights from very hard to very easy and maybe even sometimes helping out greatly on a level 3 fight.

It seems to me, Tongues and Telepathy are moreorless identical.

The main difference is, Telepathy has the limitation of communicating with only one other person at a time, while Tongues is a free-for-all. Telepathy seems to have the benefit of the conversation being unknown to others.

Either way, both seem appropriate as a 2nd-level spell, and perhaps can merge. It is easy to view Tongues as achieved telepathically my mentally imbuing linguistic knowledge.



"
Tongues
This spell grants the creature you touch the ability to understand any spoken language it hears.

Moreover, when the target speaks, any creature that knows at least one language and can hear the target, understands what it says.

"



"
Telepathy

Telepathy is a magical ability that allows a [telepath] to communicate mentally with another creature within a specified range.

The contacted creature doesn’t need to share a language with the [telepath] to communicate in this way with it, but it must be able to understand at least one language.

A creature without telepathy can receive and respond to telepathic messages, but can’t initiate or terminate a telepathic conversation.

A [telepath] doesn’t need to see a contacted creature, and can end the telepathic contact at any time.

The contact is broken as soon as the two creatures are no longer within range of each other or if the [telepath] contacts a different creature within range.

A [telepath] can initiate or terminate a telepathic conversation without using an action, but while the [telepath] is incapacitated, it can’t initiate telepathic contact, and any current contact is terminated.

A creature within the area of an antimagic field or in any other location where magic doesn’t function can’t send or receive telepathic messages.

"

For a down and dirty comparison, here are the instantaneous area damage spells.

They order by their amount of damage, given a hypothetical 50% chance to save. The use of higher level slots for Fireball serves as the benchmarks for typical damage for each spell level, colored orange.

In addition to damage, ability save, damage type, avoiding allies, and additional effects can be important considerations. Regaring area, beyond coverage for a room, excessive area can often become irrelevant or even a liability, in most situations.



Instantaneous Area Damage



Even with this rough comparison, certain evaluations become clear. The differences are simple, and easy to compare.

For the spell Delayed Blast, the delay and concentration are the tradeoff for the increased damage per turn. Despite it initially doing damage typical for a 7th-level Fireball, a thoughtful Setup for combat might increase its damage across, say, 2 turns to deal damage for a 9th-level Fireball. Note, a hostile might be able to reverse the damage against you.

Prismatic Spray does damage equivalent to a 5th-level Fireball. Randomly it might do some other effect instead, such as blinded or restrained. The unreliability prevents it from functioning as higher than a 5th-level spell.

Sunburst deals the damage of a 7th-level Fireball. Additionally, it can inflict blindness. Blinded is a helpful condition because of advantages and disadvantages. But this is more an extra to make the spell a better choice than simply casting Fireball. Moreover Sunburst relies on Constitution saves, which is less useful than the Dexterity saves. Sunburst is defacto an excellent 7th-level spell, and would be substandard as an 8th-level.

The 9th-level Meteor Swarm is in a league all its own, far higher than Fireball can achieve.

For Ice Storm, a difficult terrain that only lasts until your next turn, is a weak effect. Thus the low damage makes Ice Storm arguably a 2nd-level spell, tho probably a Less Useful 3rd-level spell.

Instantaneous Area Damage
Defacto Spell Levels
From the worst ... to the best!

3rd-Level Spells
Ice Storm − not 4th
Circle Of Death − not 6th
Lightning Bolt
Fireball
Flame Strike − not 5th

5th-Level Spells
Freezing Sphere − not 6th
Prismatic Spray − not 7th
Cone Of Cold

6th-Level Spells
Fire Storm − not 7th

7th-Level Spells
Sunburst − not 8th
Chain Lighting − Good 6th (!)

9th-Level Spells
Delayed Blast − Excellent 7th (!)
Meteor Swarm − Excellent 9th (!)

All of the spells in the SRD, levels 0 thru 9th, are up!

Comments on 9th level.

Wish is the best spell. Its two options are ideal. Use safely to duplicate any lower level spell. Or. Use it creatively but invite the DMs evil eye.

(I view Wish as available to any caster class. The Wizard masters the essence of magic. The Bard sings the song of creation. The Cleric achieves unity with the miraculous energy of being. The Psion makes thought absolute reality. Etcetera. It could be the 10th-level of any caster class. As it is in the SRD, it is the incomparable 9th-level spell.)

Problematically, Wish heals more hit points than Mass Heal does, despite Mass Heal being a 9th-level spell that represents the pinnacle of healing spells. Namely ‘20 creatures regain *ALL* hit points’, versus ‘700 hit points divided’, respectively. At the very least, Mass Healing needs to improve to also heal and restore *ALL* in order to be an exemplary choice for a healer caster.

True Resurrection must do more. This is a pinnacle spell. 9th level. Actualizing eternal life, the death of death. Firstly, the spell can create a new and perfect body. Yet its current arbitrary restrictions seem silly. It is a brand new or renewed body that should be in perfect health, the perfect physical health of a 20 year old. And be able to appear any age, whatever age the resurrectee desires. Moreover, as a perfect body, let this new body never again suffer the negative consequences of aging. A kind of perpetual immortality. A new body should make irrelevant what age the resurrectee was when dying. And irrelevant how long ago.

As the spell is now, despite True Resurrection being a 9th-level spell, the Wish spell is probably better at resurrecting. True Resurrection must do more to deserve status as a 9th-level spell, and offer significant benefits that move it beyond what Revivify already offers at 3rd level.

The incrementalism of the Resurrection spell group fails to keep up with the increasingly rare and increasingly powerful upper level spell slots. Perhaps Resurrection needs to become a single 3rd-level spell, with increasing benefits when casting it with higher level spell slots.

Meteor Swarm is the pinnacle of damage spells. In comparison, its lethality makes Power Word Kill decisively unworthy of a 9th-level spell slot. Moreover, the mechanism of hit point cut-offs for all of the Power Word spells are problematic in terms of design concept and of ingame tactics. Possibly 1st-level Sleep is a kind of ‘Power Word Sleep’ with its own hit point cut off, but the mechanism differs in that excess hit points can spill over to affect other creatures instead, making it slightly more flexible, even if still problematic.

Shapechange and True Polymorph are about equally Good. Shapechange is better but can only target self. True Polymorph can either buff an ally (including self) or contain a hostile. Both would be Excellent, except the concentration requirement hurts. A caster might typically use these to buff self in order to enter melee, where taking damage is likely to end the spell. They are almost Melee Suicide spells. But they seem flexible enough for a thoughtful use to benefit while attacking from a distance.

Prismatic Wall is an effective wall that is usually indestructible. It deals excessive damage plus possible restraint and blindness to anything that tries to pass. Meanwhile allies are immune to it, and can fight from within it or within its blinding 20 foot thickness.

Using Time Stop to split up the hostiles with barriers, like walls or illusions, is Not Bad, but using it to buff self is less useful.

Foresight with its advantage on weapon attacks is Excellent to synergize an Eldritch Knight, or alternatively a melee-competent ally. Still Not Bad for a non-melee Wizard.

The description of Astral Projection needs to summarize its main purpose, preferably as its first sentence. The point of the spell is bilocation. In this sense, it is in the same spell group as Simulacrum and Clone. Simulacrum creates a duplicate as an ally. Clone creates a duplicate as a backup body in case ones current body is killed: a kind of prepaid Revivify. Astral Projection creates duplicates as avatars, thru which you and your party can do all your adventuring remotely, while your actual bodies remain safe and sound at home. If your avatar gets killed, all of the treasure that your avatar accumulated actually comes back with you to your body at home! The spell could be Excellent, except Dispel Magic or similar can end the avatar, the weird vulnerability of a ‘silver cord’ will eventually happen (‘because it’ is a challenge that ‘is there’), so resurrection plans are necessary, and it is inconvenient to need to figure out how to get to where you want to go from the Astral Plane. Nevertheless, it is a kind of immortality, seems to be worth 9th-level, and is Not Bad.

Gate compares to 7th-level Plane Shift, but where Plane Shift arrives in a ‘general’ location (such as somewhere in a desired city or in a known Teleportation Circle), Gate seems to arrive in a ‘precise’ location and is apparently more accurate without error. Nevertheless, in order to be precise, the caster must already know exactly where to be, meaning the location must be moreorless ‘familiar’ to the caster. Thus the benefit of precision happens less often.

Additionally, Gate compares to 6th-level Planar Ally to access a powerful extra-planar creature in order to strike a bargain. Gate can only do this if the caster has learned the ‘true name’ of the creature. The difference is, Planar Ally wont attack the summoner, whereas Gate might attack the summoner. In this sense, Planar Ally is better than Gate. On the other hand, Gate can kidnap a true-named hostile for the purpose of attacking for combat.

As such, using Gate to summon seems roughly equal to Planar Ally at level 6, while using Gate to travel seems slightly better than Plane Shift at level 7. All in all, mainly because of its usefulness in traveling anywhere, Gate probably ranks as a level 8 spell.

Imprisonment has appealing folklore flavor but unsatisfying potency. It begs some fix, maybe a redesign.

Storm of Vengeance appalls. It merely does what a 4th-level spell would do, but its situationality is so extreme it is virtually unusable. The prolonged, protracted, and inflexible sequence of mostly negligible amounts of damage make the spell substandard. Moreover, the vast area harms allies. On the other hand, the damage to any intended targets is delayed, and easily avoided by seeking shelter. The contrast between cataclysmic flavor and low level mechanics, comes across as embarrassingly humorous.

Weird about as helpful as 3rd-level Cause Fear.