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

The Perfect Spell Choices for your Druid in D&D

By Theo James TaylorPublished 3 years ago Updated 2 years ago 11 min read
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The Best Spells for Druids in Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) Fifth Edition (5E)
Photo by Aditya Saxena on Unsplash

As far as spells go, Druids are awesome, they have a good mix of combat, support, utility, Area of Effect and Single Target Debuffs. All around, something within the Druid’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:

  • Guidance: While not particularly useful in combat, Guidance hould be applied on essentially every skill check. There’s essentially no reason not to use it and you will make everyone better at everything that they need to do. It’s a huge win, and possibly one of the best spells for level in the game
  • Shape Water: Shape Water is awesome, it has a million different uses. Freeze water someone is standing in, now they’re stuck. Freeze a 5 foot cube and drop it on a creature...now they’re dead (DM dependent). Pour water into a lock and freeze it, it might explode. Block a hallway, freeze a door in place, really who knows how much you can do. Basically as much as the DM will let you.
  • Thorn Whip: Small range, okay damage dice, but being able to move your enemies is far more useful than it seems like it would be. You can pull enemies off cliffs, into the clerics spirit guardians or reposition them for melee combatants. For the price of some damage, you can even move allies if they’re willing to get stabbed.

1st Level:

Absorb Elements: Absorb Elements is as good as Shield in my mind. It’s a reaction that significantly increases your chances of taking little damage from most low level elemental attacks. The bonus damage is just an added benefit, but the ability to choose between 6 damage types is priceless.

Entangle: For a first level spell, restraining such a huge area is crazy useful, and while strength is a saving throw many creatures have, it can be an excellent way to pin down smaller, less strength heavy creatures like healers and other spellcasters.

Faerie Fire: Incredibly low level option to nullify the benefits of invisibility. In addition, the advantage on attack rolls means more damage for your allies, for a first level spell, this one is prime.

Goodberry: While not particularly useful in combat, Goodberry gives more healing than other first level spells of the same level and it’s more efficient because you can perfectly distribute the healing between characters.

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.

2nd Level:

  • Augury: Your first decent Divination spell, this spell requires a DM who can think ahead and knows the answers to some of your questions, but it essentially allows you to toggle hints like you’re in the Tutorial of a video game, and the spell component is reusable unlike Augury’s higher level cousin Divination.
  • 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.
  • Lesser Restoration: Just a handy spell to get rid of those annoying status conditions, it’s useful to have it even if you won’t use it every time.
  • Pass Without Trace: A straight +10 bonus means that unless you’re rolling extremely badly, your party can pass through most locations without being seen or heard. This spell is extremely handy if you have more than one character in heavy armor in your party.
  • Spike Growth: Another extremely broken spell. It deals 2d4 damage for every 5 feet they travel within the radius, and it’s a 20 foot radius spell, which means if you drop on top of creatures they’ll be taking a lot of damage before they can escape the confines of the spikes.
  • Summon Beast: Not the most powerful summon, but it has a 1 hour duration and they are fairly good in combat, or even simply for scouting ahead. I recommend using this spell more often if you have a rogue that will benefit from having a nearby melee ally.

3rd Level:

  • Aura of Vitality: This spell has some use in combat, as it is a decent heal round by round, but more useful still out of combat you get 20d6 healing for a 3rd level spell, which is almost as good as Heal as a 6th level spell.
  • 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.
  • Protection from Energy: Situational, but a highly sought after defense for your frontline, especially if you have a good idea of what kind of monsters you are fighting ahead of time. The downside is that it’s a single ally and holds your concentration over the course of a fight.
  • Revivify: It costs 300 gp to cast, but it will change the ending of a dramatic fight from having to bury an ally and have the player make a new character, to them popping up good as new. You can even use Revivify in combat, as it’s only 1 action to cast, and you can cast it up to 1 minute after the character has died. So even if you have to wait until you’re out of combat, you have 10 rounds to do so.

4th Level:

  • Dominate Beast: A save or Suck Spell that only targets Beasts is not necessarily the best spell, but it can get you a useful thrall, and there’s no cap on the power of the ebast. Above and beyond that, Beasts tend to have low Wisdom saves so there is a good chance that this spell works on its intended target.
  • Fire Shield: Fire Shield has a 10 minute duration and doesn’t require concentration. It gives you resistance to one of either fire or old damage and deals damage to anyone who hits you with a melee attack, which can be useful if you cast it immediately before Wild Shaping and going into melee.
  • 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.
  • Stone Shape: Based somewhat on how much Dungeon Crawling or Castle Sieging you do, Stone Shape has nearly limitless uses for a clever cleric to make all kinds of crazy changes to the world, and potentially bypass monsters, traps, locked doors and other obstacles while saving more resources for the harder fights.

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.
  • Maelstrom: Maelstrom is a fantastic AoE spell for battlefield control. While it doesn’t deal a ton of damage, that isn’t what Druids are for anyway. It creates a 30 foot radius circle of difficult terrain which can easily cover more than half of a normal sized battlemap.
  • Scrying: The initial component is incredibly expensive, but you only have to buy it one time. The spell focuses on the target, but gives you a nearly perfect way to spy on the enemy, or even to simply check in on an ally. Scrying is a pretty archetypal D&D spell, and is even useful for the DM to provide information and backstory for their villains that the players might not see in another fashion.
  • Wall of Stone: For the same reason Stone Shape is useful out of combat, Wall of Stone is useful in combat. Creating a nearly impenetrable wall to either box in enemies or create a barrier for allies to hide behind. Adding to the fun, the walls can be made permanent, meaning over time you could simply build yourself a small castle.

6th Level:

  • Heal: Other than its more powerful version, Mass Heal, Heal is essentially the most powerful heal in the game. It straight up gives a creature 70 hit points and it removes most of the lower tier status conditions such as diseases and poisons. A very handy spell, and one of the few healing spells that’s actually worth a spell slot before characters are at 1 hit point.
  • Investiture of Stone: this spell makes you resistant to weapon damage, and gives you the ability to ignore difficult terrain. The earthquake effect isn’t the best part of the spell, but it also adds to its overall value, especially since you can keep this spell active while you wild shape.
  • Investiture of Wind: A fast fly speed, and the ability to stay safe from ranged attacks is significant. This is a good option for Druids who are playing primarily ranged characters.
  • Transport Via Plants: Normally this spell wouldn’t rank on the list for how good it is, but because of shenanigans, the spell lets you transport as many creatures as can make it through the spell in one round, which means a Druid with a 6th level spell slot can transport a small army to anywhere else with a plant of significant size.

7th Level:

  • 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.
  • Plane Shift: A single target save or suck spell, similarly to Banishment, it simply removes a threat, even better than Banishment they simply don’t come back. In addition, you can use it to travel around the planes with your party members to all kinds of fun places. Especially useful for getting nearly anywhere in the cosmos, or using the Heavens of Celestia as a good place to take a nap when you find yourself in a challenging spot.
  • Reverse Gravity: As long as you are outside and there’s nothing nearby for a creature to grab onto, and they can not fly, then the creature is stuck, no save, at the top of the cylinder, and just floats there for a while while your party members quickly end it. This spell is a lot of fun!

8th Level:

  • 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.
  • Sunburst: A giant fiery explosion with the chance to blind opponents. It is a Constitution Save which is one of the weaker saves in the game as many creatures have high Con or proficiency in the save, but the sheer size of Sunburst makes it worth it in certain situations.
  • Tsunami: Smash your enemies with an enormous tidal wave, what’s not to love? Not only do you push everything away from you and potentially off of cliff or into any other AoE your allies might have up, but it also is very effective at quickly rearranging the battlefield if you’re about to get swamped.

9th Level:

  • Foresight: 8 Hour buff, advantage on basically everything. Enemies have disadvantage on everything against the creature.
  • Shapechange: It’s like the ultimate polymorph spell, Shapechange allows you to chance in an instant into everything...literally everything. If you have this you should have more than a few stat blocks ready to go or you’re going to slow down the combat. It’s hard to go wrong with dragons!

If you like this article or any others I have written, consider liking, subscribing, tipping or pledging here on Vocal as it really helps me continue writing! If you're looking for other articles on Druids, follow the links below!

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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