The Best Cantrips in Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) Fifth Edition (5E)

Cantrips may not be the most powerful spells a spellcaster has access to, but they are by far the most versatile choices that you will make as a caster in your class of choice. Cantrips are spells that you get a very limited access to, but they are the spells your caster has infinite access to, you never run out of Cantrip spell slots. While new cantrips rarely come out in new sourcebooks, they remain the most important choice in many ways that many spellcasters will make in their careers. So! Without further ado, here are the best cantrips in D&D Fifth Edition!

Eldritch Blast

While anyone who plays D&D knows that Warlocks and Eldritch Blast are almost more of a meme now than anything, Eldritch Blast is also an incredibly useful Cantrip. Now if you spend time looking at it, you might wonder, why is this spell better than Firebolt if I have to make an attack roll on every Eldritch Blast I shoot, and so have more chances to miss than throwing one spell that does the same damage? While Firebolt might be a little simpler, the reason Eldritch Blast is better is threefold.

First and foremost, the most likely one to use this spell is as a Warlock, and a Warlock has a number of invocations to make Eldritch Blast even better. But, those aside, if you are not playing a Warlock. Eldritch Blast beats out Firebolt due to its versatility. You can target more individual people, this is especially useful if you have several enemies at low health and don’t want to blow a spell slot taking them out, you can instead spread Eldritch Blast between your targets. Lastly, and possibly the most important reason that Eldritch Blast takes a slot for best offensive cantrip is the fact that it deals Force damage. Firebolt deals fire damage, which has the most resistances and immunities attributed to it. Force has the least, meaning this cantrip will continue being useful even into the higher levels!

Mage Hand

Mage Hand allows you to create a spectral hand that floats about, it doesn’t require concentration, and the hand lasts 1 minute. Not that that often matters since you can cast it as many times as you want. More than that, the hand vanishes if it is ever more than 30 feet away from you or if you cast it again. In other words, no having multiple Mage Hands at once sadly. This spell has about a million uses, anything you can imagine using a spectral floating hand for...I mean honestly. Opening doors and chests from around the corner, grabbing items from off ledges, it can maybe help with doing the dishes..? The hand can’t attack, activate magic items or carry more than 10 lbs, so it certainly has some downsides, but you’ll find more upsides!

Mold Earth

This cantrip essentially lets you play Minecraft, but in D&D. You literally manipulate up to a 5 foot cube of earth, either excavating it, moving it along the ground and depositing it elsewhere. You can create images, spell out words or shape patterns out of it. Or you can cause it to become difficult terrain or go from difficult terrain to normal terrain, the latter effects lasting one hour. This spell is extremely useful as a Cantrip in preparing for a battle or a siege if you get to pick the battlefield, or in order to get through a swamp or to create very confused villagers. Really the options and abilities it can lead you to are down to your imagination and a DM who deals with whatever shenanigans you produce.

Shocking Grasp

Shocking Grasp becomes far more useful the higher level you get, while it isn't the highest damage output cantrip in the game, it comes with other benefits. The main downside to Shocking Grasp is that it is a melee spell attack meaning you have to get within close range of your enemies. But, you have advantage on the attack roll if the target is wearing metal armor, far more importantly still, however, is that if the target is hit it loses its reaction until the start of its next turn. This is useful against melee attackers with the Sentinel Feat or Tunnel Fighter who are keeping your allies pinned down with their attacks, but it is also extremely useful for those annoying spellcasters, whose ability to Counterspell you can easily rob from them, and they don’t even get a saving throw against the effect, effectively pruning them of their defensive capabilities.

Green Flame Blade

This cantrip is useful for melee spellcasters, especially Warlocks. You make a melee attack with a weapon against a creature within 5 feet of you. On a hit, the target suffers the normal weapon damage and a green flame leaps from the target you just hit to an adjacent creature, which takes fire damage equal to your spellcasting ability modifier. While this isn’t a ton of damage. For certain classes, this additional damage can be extremely useful when attached to other abilities, and it adds up over time more than you think it would.

Mind Sliver

Mind Sliver is another extremely effective cantrip, first and foremost it deals psychic damage, which is another damage type along with Force that very creatures have any resistances or immunities to. But even more important than that, if the creature fails its Intelligence saving throw (a save very few creatures have any proficiency in) then the creature subtracts a d4 from its next saving throw. This is handy before one of your other party members hits it with a powerful spell that you are hoping the creature to fail.

Guidance

Guidance is a quick action to give any creature a d4 bonus to its next attack roll, ability check or saving throw. While the cantrip is very rarely used in combat, though it certainly could be. What you will see most often is that parties will spam Guidance before literally every single ability check that they perform outside of combat, such as lockpicking, climbing a wall, jumping a chasm, literally anything in which there is no actual time limit to it, Guidance gives you what is essentially a +2.5 bonus to the roll. Some DMs have a little stricter rules on what you can and can’t use it on, but overall, Guidance may very well be the best Cantrip in the game based on pure versatility more than anything else.