What are your favorite high level 5th Edition spells?


4th Edition

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

Hi!
My cleric is now 13th level, and I gotta be honest with ya, I'm not impressed with the high level spells.

For example, I have access to Conjure Celestial but there are only two choices: Pegasus and Couatl. Unless there is another CR 4 or less celestial I don't know about.

Firestorm does approximately the same damage as a fireball, and that's not even my character's schtick, anyways. I've barely used my 5th level spells (except contagion and greater restoration), and the 6th and 7th level spells seem odd. Heal is nice, obviously, but I've only used it once or less.

I think next session I'm going to try a 7th level spiritual guardians. 7d8 damage per round for 10 minutes? Wow.

Is that the way 5th Edition spells are supposed to be used? Boosting lower level spells instead of being amazed by the baseline higher level spells?


I think it's important to heed the various "don't compare it to Pathfinder" admonitions, since higher level magic is clearly meant to be worse than in prior editions. Some of them are still pretty great though compared to sub-sixthlevel 5E spells:

There are things like plane shift, teleport, true seeing and so forth which are all above 5th level - I found those pretty game-changing (you can just generally only do a couple a day).

I've also had fun with Sunbeam. (If you can move around easily that can wreak havoc on 'hordes of undead' type encounters).

Contingency is pretty cool (depending on how generous your DM is with trigger conditions, I suppose).

It's ninth level, but Foresight is a pretty awesome buff if you think about it.

Those are with my wizard. I've never played a cleric but I do have a heal-focussed bard and he spends a lot of his higher spell slots boosting his lower level spells, so perhaps it's a bit class dependant (?)


Etheralness looks good for bypassing obstacles. Regenerate appears to be useful for anytime the group is restricted from taking a short rest. And Symbol has some very interesting applications.

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

I'm not really comparing the high level 5th Edition spells to PF spells, but high level 5th Edition spells to low level 5th Edition spells.

Grand Lodge RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

SmiloDan wrote:
Is that the way 5th Edition spells are supposed to be used? Boosting lower level spells instead of being amazed by the baseline higher level spells?

I don't have a lot of experience with high-level magic in 5E, but I'll say this: If they were to build the system with a mechanic for using lower-level spells in higher-level slots, but then to actually do so were either always or never the right choice (compared to casting an actual high-level spell), then that would be a design failure.

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

True that!

I was hoping for new and exciting options with the higher level prepared spells, with the option of using those higher level spell slots for boosted lower level spells.

Sovereign Court

What are your thoughts about spirit guardians in particular? I had heard that it was a great spell.

On Fire Storm, it is good, but it's way too "battlemap" to find the best benefit in 5e. It definitely COULD affect more creatures than fireball. I wonder what the abstract for that would be like.

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

Spiritual Guardians is AMAZING!!!!!!!! It's an area effect that targets Wisdom saves and persists for up to 10 minutes!

It lets your cleric tank by taking the Dodge action and doing damage every round. Add some spiritual weapon for some extra focused damage each round as a bonus action.

We usually use a battlemap (I really like maps!!!), so that's not a problem. It's just not my "style." My guy mostly buffs and healing, with some striking with spells and warhammers. Everyone else does the DPR thing. I just make them better at it.

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