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The Best Spells for Bards in Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) Fifth Edition (5E)

The Perfect Spell Choice for Every Level

By Theo James TaylorPublished 3 years ago Updated 2 years ago 9 min read
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The Best Spells for Bards in Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) Fifth Edition (5E)
Photo by Marek Piwnicki on Unsplash

As far as spells go, Bards are awesome, they have a good mix of combat, support, utility, Area of Effect and Single Target Debuffs. All around, something within the Bard’s spell list will fit every caster’s playing style. The following list is by no means a full account of every good spell on the list, but simply the best spells at each spell level. Some spells will situationally be better than others, and it’s impossible to know what any individual DM or adventure will throw at you, but here are the top picks!

Cantrips:

Mage Hand: Anyone who has ever wanted to have telekinetic powers and move things with their mind can tell you how exceptionally useful Mage Hand can be. It can push down pressure plates, open doors, wash your dishes, all at a reasonably safe distance. Anything that you don’t want to do while you’re standing right next to it is what Mage Hand is for. It’s also for being lazy and grabbing the remote without standing up from the couch.

Minor Illusion: Minor Illusion is a very small illusory space, but it is still a 5-foot cube. This is reasonable enough to create a hiding place, to cover up something on a cursory glance, or to create a distraction, especially at lower levels.

Vicious Mockery: Have you ever wanted to kill your enemies by insulting them? Vicious Mockery is the spell for you, it does damage and applies a small debuff to your enemies, and it’s a simply iconic spell!

1st Level:

  • Dissonant Whispers: For a first level spell, this little nugget is extremely useful. It only requires verbal components, so you can use it while restrained or grappled, and if the creature fails its save it has to run away, which both burns their reaction and also might provoke attacks of opportunity from your allies.
  • Feather Fall: I have seen more characters die from unexpected falls off much too tall cliffs than character deaths from almost literally anything else. Take this spell, it might save your life.
  • Healing Word: It’s no secret that healing in 5e is terrible. You will never keep up enough healing to match damage output at any level. Almost the only useful thing it does is get your friends back above consciousness. Better to use a bonus action than an action to do so, and keep yourself open to use a cantrip or attack, and Healing Word has more range, meaning you don’t have to incur Attacks of Opportunity on yourself running across the battlefield to touch your ally for Cure Wounds.
  • Heroism: Heroism is an amazing spell, but especially at lower levels. It requires concentration, but at lower levels you don’t have too many other concentration spells anyway. And while it might not provide a lot of temporary hit points, if you keep it up over the course of a combat it will far and away ‘heal’ more than any use of Cure Wounds or Healing Word. Highly recommended.

2nd Level:

  • Aid: Basically no better 2nd level spell as far as buffs go. It increases characters hit point maximum, which means it doesn’t interfere with also giving them temporary hit points via Heroism. It is not concentration, it lasts 8 hours, you can basically drop it on your entire front line. There’s nothing not to love here.
  • Enhance Ability: All around fantastic utility spells. Enhance Ability gives you advantage on anything you need. Cat’s Grace on the rogue, now they have advantage on Stealth or Sleight of Hand, Bull’s Strength on the Barbarian, now they have advantage on Grappling and Athletics checks to shove. Eagle’s Splendor on yourself and now you have advantage on Persuasion and Deception checks AND more importantly advantage on Counterspell checks as well.
  • Invisibility: This one is just common sense, it lasts an hour, at higher level you can hit even more people. It’s the perfect scouting spell.
  • Silence: Basically every spell in the game has a verbal component. If your enemies are bunched up, or if the barbarian/fighter has them pinned in one area. Drop Silence and the enemy spellcasters are instantly useless.
  • Suggestion: The Jedi Mind Trick of spells, Suggestion is the archetypal bard spell. Suggest anything you want and off the creature goes if they fail their save. You may want to have a discussion with your DM for how far they’ll let you go with the spell, but otherwise, this might be one of the best spells on the entire list.

3rd Level:

  • Bestow Curse: Bestow Curse is insane, I’m pretty sure whoever made the spell just didn’t consider how broken it was. Casting it at a higher level basically ruins enemies. I suggest looking through all the effects, but robbing creatures of their turn every time they fail their saving throw is my personal favorite.
  • Dispel magic: 120 foot range, can take care of multiple buffs on enemies, and with Eagle’s Splendor and a decent charisma it will be hard for you to fail. I highly recommend this spell. Also useful if you have to disarm magical traps or other wards.
  • Leomund's Tiny Hut: Make all of your DM’s nighttime random encounters essentially null and void by setting up this impenetrable dome that provides camouflage and a perfect place to rest.
  • Motivational Speech: Another great option for temporary hit points, and you don’t have to take the Inspiring Leader feat to do it, very good spell.
  • Tongues: Assuming you are the face of the part you’ll want to use this on yourself, and for a low level spell that allows you to talk to basically any creature in the game with a language, it is certainly worth picking up.

4th Level:

  • Dimension Door: 500 feet teleport in any direction for you and one other creature, and you don’t have to see your intended target as long as you know where it is or can simply envision it. This will get you out of many tight situations.
  • Greater Invisibility: Only lasts for 1 minute, so not as good for scouting as regular Invisibility, this spell is for combat more than anything else. Put this on the party rogue and they’ll always have sneak attacks. Put it on the party healer and they’ll be nearly impossible to target. Put it on the Wizard for the same reason, so they don’t die with their low HP. Plenty of reasons to have.
  • Polymorph: Not only is this gonna give you or someone else a ton of extra hit points in combat, but it can also be useful for scouting, for getting past traps, through small spaces or exploring in the air or underwater. The usefulness of this spell can not be understated.

5th Level:

  • Greater Restoration: Restores all ability score damage, removes a point of Exhaustion, and more, Greater Restoration is a spell at least one party member should be able to cast, so if you don’t have a cleric, you should pick it up.
  • Hold Monster: Any creature that can be paralyzed is getting hammered by this spell. Creatures that get paralyzed go down almost immediately, as every attack that hits them is an automatic critical. Hold your action to hit a creature immediately before your Barbarian or Paladin’s turn and that monster is guaranteed to go down.
  • Skill Empowerment: Any time you absolutely need someone in the party to succeed on a skill check, this is the spell for you. It gives a character the equivalent of Expertise, which gets more useful the higher level you get.

6th Level:

  • Eyebite: Concentration for a minute and each turn you can hit a creature with a different effect. Putting creatures to sleep is an excellent use of the spell, essentially taking them out of the fight if you can keep their allies away from them.
  • Mass Suggestion: Useful for all the reasons Suggestion is useful, but now you can do it to small armies, or entire tribes of kobolds.
  • True Seeing: See through Illusions, ignore invisibility, see into the Ethereal Plane, see Hidden Doors, ignore magical darkness and see a Shapechanger’s true form at any time. The spell might not be useful all the time, but when it is, it’s a no-brainer.

7th Level:

  • Etherealness: This spell lasts 8 hours, you are nearly undetectable by creatures on the Material Plane which allows you to scout dungeons, escape combats and spy on other creatures. It’s even long enough to hazard a long rest, though I expect there are better uses for a 7th level spell.
  • Forcegage: Win a combat with one spell. Forcecage is particularly useful on melee combatants with very little magical ability. There is no save on it, and it’s essentially inescapable for about 90% of the Monster Manual.
  • Mirage Arcane: This spell is DM dependent, but the way it is written indicates that you can essentially bend the world to your whim and will, so take it as you will and perhaps discuss your plans with your DM ahead of time.
  • Teleport: Useful for all the obvious reasons. This spell does of course have the small chance of a Mishap if you don’t know where you’re going. But once you get to this level and get the spell you can go anywhere you want in the world. The DM better have adventures planned in every conceivable portion of the globe, because there is no range limit. If you’re ever in dire straights, you can teleport your whole party back to a teleportation circle you know, plenty of uses.

8th Level:

  • Dominate Monster: The best Save-or-Suck spell in the game hands down. Cast this on an enemy and if they fail you now get the enemy as an ally. If they take damage they can make a new save, so unless your save is high, or their saving throw is low, it’s not necessarily useful to use your monster in combat, but if you’re already in combat you can simply have them walk away and wait until it's over.
  • Feeblemind: Situational in many ways based on how many spellcasters you interact with. But if there is a spellcaster, and you hit them with the spell, they are done for, and you’ve essentially taken them out of the fight.
  • Glibness: One of my favorite spells personally, Glibness makes it so that you are the ultimate face and it also makes you an unstoppable Counterspelling, Dispel Magic machine.

9th Level:

  • Foresight: 8 Hour buff, advantage on basically everything. Enemies have disadvantage on everything against the creature.
  • Psychic Scream: Good for large scale combats, especially against Low Intelligence creatures. Decent damage and long term stuns means you can take out a combat of brutish creatures fairly easily, or open up a combat to deal with the spellcasters in a quick fashion.
  • True Polymorph: This spell has a fairly ridiculous amount of uses, but everyone’s favorite is to simply turn into a dragon, because who doesn’t want to be a dragon.

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If you're looking for spells for another class, look below;

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About the Creator

Theo James Taylor

Writer, MCU lover, and HUGE RPG nerd (but especially D&D). I have been a ghostwriter for blogs and other publications for 5 years now, but love the freedom Vocal gives me. You can find me DMing an outrageous Homebrew Campaign every Monday!

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