We're returning to our PCs from our 5e conversion of RotRL.
I play a NG Hill Dwarf Acolyte Life Cleric 14 dedicated to Desna. I usually do a lot of in-combat healing, buffing via bless, tanking, and liberal use of spiritual weapon and sacred flame--often at the same time. I also try to use spiritual guardians when I'm not using bless, and I also use a lot of guiding bolt and my warhammer (I have Strength 23 via magical belt). I'll also use contagion when I need to.
What are the good 5th, 6th, and 7th level spells?
The rest of the party is well balanced and takes care of doing the direct damage stuff (barbarian berserker, two-weapon fighting eldritch knight, switch-hitter arcane trickster, divination wizard blaster, archery focused hunter ranger). The wizard and ranger do battlefield control, and the ranger has a Horn of Valhalla for emergencies.
I'm just looking for ways to make everyone even better than they are.
Thanks!
Most buff spells are Concentration and usually you're happy with Bless, so what you're looking for is situational coverage and active effects.
Lvl 7: Divine Word. A bonus action Word of (Whatever their HP falls into) that's a selective AOE, and can also just banish celestials/elementals/fey/fiends. It's a good trick to have up your sleeve that doesn't get in the way of anything else you do (as the lower level Banishment spell is concentration).
Lvl 6: Heroes' Feast is a way to turn gold into buffs.
I'd suggest divinations, but the wizard probably enjoys being the authority in that sphere.
I'm not a fan of divinations.
Divine Word is good against "extra planars," but it affects things with really low hit points. Deafened at 50 hit points or less? Now I can't even talk to them. I guess it's a good clean up spell if you need to kill 20 hp minions.
A 7th level spirit guardians is 7d8 each round....
True, but Spirit Guardians is a concentration spell that takes an action to cast, and thus doesn't play well with the majority of buffs since they tend to be concentration to maintain.
I know you're looking for high level spells, but I thought I'd mention that a scaled up heat metal is a no-save debuff with monstrous damage on anyone wearing full plate. Pretty good spell to have in your arsenal for when the party is fighting a single, heavily armored brute.
Depending on what the other players can do, I think true seeing would be a decent possibility - every high level party needs access to that, in my opinion.
I think I usually keep trueseeing prepared nowadays.
Is heat metal a cleric spell? Or just druid?
Concentration gets really annoying at levels 9+. There are a lot of good lower level spells you get kind of used to using all the time (like bless and spiritual guardians), so it can be costly to experiment with new Concentration spells.
Especially since a level 1 cleric and a level 14 cleric has the same Dex save! -1 in my case, so bless is still useful.
Is heat metal a cleric spell? Or just druid?
Oh you're right, my mistake. I had a 'priest' who used heat metal but now I remember it, he was actually built as a bard. Scratch that comment/suggestion then.
It's still good advise. We're going to be doing the Yawning Portal soon-ish (or eventually), and we'll be able to try out a bunch of different classes. I plan on trying a Wood Elf archer druid of the Circle of the Moon, a drow/tiefling/dragonfolk bard of Lore based on debuffing and interrupting (with a possible warlock dip), and a Mountain Dwarf "magus" (abjuration wizard with Tough). Maybe a ninja (assassin rogue/shadow monk). Maybe a palalock too for tons of smiting!