List of D&D Spells

Thought the history of D&D, there have been many spells for spellcasters. A few of these spells are especially iconic to the point where even people who don't play D&D know them, and others have become infamous for other reasons such as how they get exploited. Here we will try to make a list of many of these spells.

Black Blade of Disaster

Also known as simply "Blade of Disaster", this 9th level spell conjures a planar rift in the shape of a sword, which basically becomes a kind of free-floating uber-weapon that can chop through just about anything. If you're familiar with Slayers, it's basically the Ragna Blade spell, but Black Blade of Disaster actually came first.

Burning Hands

One of the most iconic low-level damage spells, next to Magic Missile, Burning Hands is a 1st level Evocation spell that lets the caster unleash a 15ft long conical blast of flames. It's usually the first access to area-of-effect damage that a wizard gets their hands on, and whilst the range is kind of sucky, it's also usually fairly quick to cast, so it can make a great emergency blast spell when dealing with low-level mooks like Giant Rats, Goblins or Kobolds.

5th edition finally added a long-missing ice equivalent spell called "Frost Fingers" in the adventure Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden.

Color Spray

Introduced in Dragon Magazine #12 as a new spell exclusively for the original Illusionist variant class of the Magic User, Color Spray has s transcended its humble beginnings to become a mainstay in every Player's Handbook since. The spell creates a 15ft conical burst of brilliant colored light that overwhelms the minds of weaker creatures; this doesn't cause physical damage, but inflicts different kinds of status impairments; traditionally, it knocks foes unconscious, but some editions tweak the effect - the 5e version simply blinds whatever it hits, for example. It's traditionally a great way to take down swathes of low-level mook monsters, such as goblins or kobolds, as they tend to be particularly vulnerable to its mechanics and the impairment it induces leaves them as easily cleaned up by the party's fighter.

Cone of Cold

The cold damage counterpart to Fireball and Lightning Bolt, but it’s typically presented as levels higher than either of those. Back in the day, the Dungeon Master was expected to be a lot more cruel to players, and as such Fireball and Lightning Bolt would have all kinds of horrible side effects like uncontrollable areas in narrow space and destroying loot, none of which applied to Cone of Cold. Even after 3rd edition onward had everyone drop this drawback, Cone of Cold remains higher level for having a higher damage ceiling and a larger AoE.

Detect Evil

That spell that causes arguments about morality.

Disintegrate

The iconic Save or Die spell, Disintegrate is a high medium/low high-level spell (typically around 6th level out of 9) where the wizard points or looks at whatever they don't like and turns it to dust. Wham, bam, thank you ma'am. Now, there are some restrictions to keep this ability from being completely broken, the ability to annihilate enemies in one shoot has driven more than one DM batty. You can generally tell a 3e DM has seen some shit if they start twitching at the sentence "Empowered Expanded Disintegrate" (or whatever the metamagic was that turned a single-target spell into an AoE spell). And if that's not enough, Disintegrate also works on inanimate materials, making it a great way to Dungeon Bypass by just burning a hole through solid stone. Or steel. Or anything that isn't magic resistant, really.

One of the ways older editions tried to discourage abuse of this spell, beyond boosting it to 6th level, is by giving it a pretty high if not automatic chance to also disintegrate most/all of the stuff that the target was carrying. Meaning any monster you killed with this spell didn't drop loot. Of course, that angle was dropped from 3e onwards.

Traditionally, Disintegrate is an all-or-nothing spell and thus has no damage type. In 4th and 5th edition, it instead became "merely" an attack that does a pretty high amount of Necrotic damage. 4e did at least give it the "Ongoing" keyword, so it kept burning the foe with damage round after round until they made their saving throw.

Eldritch Blast

The iconic spell of the warlock class, Eldritch Blast is just a straight-forward projectile attack of pure eldritch energy. Warlocks in 5th Edition can choose from several eldritch invocations that improve this spell.

Explosive Runes

Places words on a surface that explode when they are read. Made famous by an exploit in third edition where the runes could be stockpiled and detonated remotely with dispel magic for massive damage, and the comic Order of the Stick, where the spell is used as a running gag. In 5th edition this spell returns as an option for the spell Glyph of Warding.

Fireball

An iconic wizard spell that does a lot of damage over an area. The creators of 5th edition have actually admitted that they intentionally made the spell overpowered since it is such an iconic spell.

Grease

Conjures a great puddle of slippery, slimy oil on the ground; anything entering this puddle risks falling over, and is forced to move more slowly, which is great for crowd control or keeping a single bigger monster vulnerable and defenseless; ogres and trolls in particular tend to have a bad time with this spell. In older editions, at least, the puddle is explicitly oil, so you can set it on fire and create an el-cheapo fireball effect.

Magic Missile

One of the first spells wizards learn. The damage it does is pretty small, but it is extremely useful because it never misses and since it does force damage, very few enemies in the game are immune or resistant to it. Exactly how useful it is depends a lot on your edition; in earlier editions, where wizards get fewer spells, it's largely pointless until later in the game and you're better off taking spells like Sleep, Color Spray or Grease instead as a 1st level wizard. Later editions make it drastically stronger.

Prismatic Spray

A powerful spell that shoot multiple random lasers that have different effects depending on their color. Prismatic Spray is a beast of a crowd-control spell because like Magic Missile, it allows the caster to roll separate damage for each target. Though targets get a saving throw, the potential damage and harmful side effects (like the violet ray's ability to send targets to another plane) can be devastating. There is also a more powerful version of this spell called prismatic wall which creates a barrier with multiple layers that each have the same effects and each have a different way of breaking them.

Raise Dead

The most basic of the many spells that can be used to bring back a dead character.

Reincarnation

Like raise dead, but it might bring you back as the wrong (or right) species.

Hideous Laughter

Invented in 3rd edition, causes a target creature to start literally laughing themselves to death.

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Rope Trick

Used to create the Rope Trick Bunker of Doom.

Sleep

Widely regarded as the most devastating 1st level group control spell, the Sleep spell... well, it puts a fairly large group of creatures to sleep even if theyr'e right in the middle of a battle, leaving them defenseless for you to either coup de grace or run away from.

Vicious Mockery

A bard spell that allows insults to inflict damage.

Wall of Stone

A spell that creates a large segment of stone that is shapeable and doesn't have a duration (it lasts forever). This makes it very versatile for building things, especially when combined with spells that allow further shaping of the stone.

Wish

The spell that grants you a wish. Always comes at a huge cost to cast it or source that will corrupt it, but players will always find a way to exploit it. The Cleric counterpart spell is called Miracle.