3rd-level spells. The point in character development that marks a significant boost to power level. The character-defining spells of a spellcasting class. Since 3rd-level spells are a critical moment on a character's journey to level 20, I'm curious about what other D&D 5e players think is the best 3rd-level spell. I'm using spells across all class spell lists, but I will be only using spells from the core set. This includes the PHB, XGtE, and TCoE. I'm doing so for the sake of simplicity.
Note: When filling out the poll, do not check more than 3 boxes.
(Did not include paladin or ranger spells)
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Brains over brawn? Mind over matter? These canny warriors rightly answer, "Why not both?" - Tasha
In my opinion, there is little doubt. The best offensive spell is Hypnotic Pattern. The best defensive spell is Counterspell. The best Utility spell is Revivify.
Hypnotic Pattern is wonderful, mainly because they do NOT get another save. Counterspell nullifies all spells that use a slot of 3rd or lower. And who does not want to come back from the dead?
I had to vote for Counterspell... if you've got access to Counterspell and you don't take Counterspell... well, you picked wrong. You should have Counterspell.
That said... for me that's a purely mechanical choice. For my personal taste I just really like Haste. It always feels like a huge game changer... one of my favorite spells to hand out as a support character. And I also really like that there's a hard price to it when concentration is lost... I know that's a big factor in why some people prefer other buff spells, but I actually think it makes the game more exciting. I'd kind of like if there were more spells that had some kind of "kick back" when they complete.
Spells like Fireball, Counterspell, Revivify etc. are all probably at the top of the list from a game mechanics perspective. But if you're talking about my personal favorite just from a "fun" perspective, it's definitely Enemies Abound. It brings back the fun of playing as Ezio in the Assassin's Creed games, shooting someone in the enemy camp with one of those poison darts then watching him go crazy and attack all his allies while you sit quietly on the roof of the neighboring building and laugh :)
The number of people who sleep on Conjure Animals makes me sad.
If you summon a small army, you can cause utter mayhem on the battlefield. Even if they don't have a ton of HP, adding 8 of anything onto the combat field is bound to help your party by causing distractions or eating up attacks. And if you choose to conjure beefier animals (like two dire wolves), you get some great tanking and offensive opportunities. And this spell just gets better as you upcast.
I've used Conjure Animals to med-evac the party out of a collapsing dungeon. I've used it to play keep away with a roc. Any spell that effectively gives you anywhere from 1-8 extra actions in a round at its base level of casting is worthy of respect.
Most DMs let the PCs know what spell is being cast for free and that makes counterspell incredible powerful. If, as Jeremy Crawford suggests, it takes one PC to use their reaction to to attempt to identify the spell being cast you are left with either casting it "blind" possibly agaist a firebolt or burning one reaction and if it goes badly either casting it blind or not using the spell. In this circumstance counterspell becomes a lot less useful especialy at lower levels when 3rd level spells are precious and ability modifiers ar elow making a failure on the arcana check more likely.
I hate Conjure animals not because it isn't powerful (it isn't great when the enemy has AoE attacks but plenty of enemies don't) but because adding another 8 combatents into the fray slows things down so much.
Fireball, Hypnotic Pattern and Spirit Guardians are all up there for offensive spells, though all have their strengths and weaknesses. Sprit guardians is weak against a single enemy or enemies who spread out and use ranged attacks, Hypnotic pattern is a save or suck spell so can potentially do nothing, if a character not affected by the spell had magic missile it also becomes less powerful, fireball does more damage than any other spell of similar level though is less useful if the players and enemies are all in the same area, Fire damage is also the most resisted / immuned (if that is a word).
Revivify is very rarely required but when you need it is absolutly fantastic (unless you are out of diamonds!)
I think the best utility spell (I consider revivy a healing spell rather than utility) is tiny hut. It didn't quite make my top 3 but the ability to be certain on getting a long rest unless something with dispel magic notices you is a huge boon, and if you are trekking accoss hot deserts or an arctic waste being able ot rest at a comfortable temperature can also be a lifesaver..
The number of people who sleep on Conjure Animals makes me sad.
If you summon a small army, you can cause utter mayhem on the battlefield. Even if they don't have a ton of HP, adding 8 of anything onto the combat field is bound to help your party by causing distractions or eating up attacks. And if you choose to conjure beefier animals (like two dire wolves), you get some great tanking and offensive opportunities. And this spell just gets better as you upcast.
I've used Conjure Animals to med-evac the party out of a collapsing dungeon. I've used it to play keep away with a roc. Any spell that effectively gives you anywhere from 1-8 extra actions in a round at its base level of casting is worthy of respect.
Be a level 11 Artificer and create your Spell Storing item, and choose the level 1 spell catapult, storing 10 uses of Catapult in the item.
Being an Eberron Variant Human: Mark of Handling, you can cast conjure animals, conjuring up 8 beasts of whatever type you like.
Each beast then uses the spell storing item, flinging a rock for 4d8 damage using the Artificer's spell attack modifier, for a potential 32d8 bludgeoning damage on the turn you do this.
Counterspell it has the most potential out of everything on the list as it can stop a 9th level spell
also I have no idea why this isn’t on the bard spell list
I agree with you on both points. It is the third level spell I use most often in combat. I'm traveling with a Wrecking Crew. If I can keep the opponents magic from stopping them, the wrecking crew will get the rest of the job done. I have some decent choices for damage spells among my 1st and 2nd level spells. But I need Dispel Magic and Counterspell.
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Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
Counterspell is not on the bard list because it is so powerful. Bards have Magical Secrets and they are expected to use it for the 'best' spells, so they purposely did not give Bards some of the more powerful spells.
It looks like I am the only person who selected Fear?
Fear is my favorite third level spell and is also the "best" overall third level spell IMO. Affects a large area and enemies that fail a save are out of the fight for the duration with almost no way to get back into the fight before it is over. I've seen a lot of spells cast but no offensive spell of 3rd level or below is as effective as fear IME. As a control spell Fear is WAY, WAY more effective than Hypnotic Pattern or Slow IME as it usually takes every action from every enemy that fails the save for the entire fight. It is probably the best mass control spell under 6th level.
Counterspell is the most effective/game changing 3rd level spell when it is used, but the very limited opportunities to use it keep it from being the favorite spell overall IMO. It is not very often you get to use it, while you will use lighting bolt, fireball, Spirit guardians, Thunder Step, Fear, etc almost every day you have it prepared and usually to good affect.
To me, Counterspell, unless someone else in the party has it. From there? I'd say a dead heat tie between a few, all dependent on your role in the group.
Haste Slow Fireball/Lightning Bolt Revivify
Honorable mention for sure to Conjure Animals, I agree, highly underrated for how useful it can be. Thunderstep, Mass Healing Word and Call Lightning are pretty good when the situation fits too. Lots of good 3rd level spells, IMO.
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Talk to your Players.Talk to your DM. If more people used this advice, there would be 24.74% fewer threads on Tactics, Rules and DM discussions.
To me, Counterspell, unless someone else in the party has it. From there? I'd say a dead heat tie between a few, all dependent on your role in the group.
Haste Slow Fireball/Lightning Bolt Revivify
Honorable mention for sure to Conjure Animals, I agree, highly underrated for how useful it can be. Thunderstep, Mass Healing Word and Call Lightning are pretty good when the situation fits too. Lots of good 3rd level spells, IMO.
Yes. 3rd-level spells are character-defining, so of course many of them will be flashy.
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Brains over brawn? Mind over matter? These canny warriors rightly answer, "Why not both?" - Tasha
Slow is fantastic against an army (upto 6) of low level creatures in short, small battles that are mixed in with your own part. But the nature of the saves means it is practically worthless in the main battles. It works for a round or two and people make their saves and it is done. So basically it is a great spell when you are in no danger whatsoever. Good workhorse but not a great spell.
Haste does not have that problem. Instead there is a problem with Dispel Magic. When using it against a Mage, effectively the spell does very very little. But it is a fantastic spell for dangerous battles that do not involve a Dispel Magic caster.
Hypnotic Pattern is fantastic against almost any battle. It does not have the multi-save issue that slow and so many other spells have. Instead someone has to shake awake the victims, which takes up the action of people not affected by it. So the only real time it is useless is when you are facing a large number of weak opponents. (if they are strong, taking up their action is worth it). Vs Slow, it is slightly smaller (30 ft rather than 40 ft cube) and cannot be used when your party is mixed in (all people vs you choose 6).
In my personal experience, most of the time, Slow is not worth taking. In situations where it is better than Hypnotic Pattern, you would have won even if no spell was cast.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
I think lightning bolt can be better than fireball. they both do 8d6 damage, but lightning bolt is a 100 foot line, not a 20-foot radius, so it is easier to avoid hitting anyone you don't want to hit.
Also lightning damage has a lot less resistances and immunities than fire damage
If you're on a large battlefield, Fireball would be better if multiple enemies are close together, away from you and your friends.
Does anyone else think that 3rd level spells are the best? My favorite is Melf's Minute Meteors, but the best would probably be fireball, counterspell, lightning bolt, revivify, etc.
In a game where the main motive is to kill things, fireball is the best lvl 3 spell. That's not to say there aren't other good spells out there, but fireball makes all the difference in a game that deals with that.
On the other hand, counterspell is a lifesaver. Probably the best in that regard. I see few people voting for dispel magic, but this is another must that every party should have. There are some DMs cheating here, making impossible odds so you can't skip half a plot with a dispel magic. But objectively that spell is for that.
And then as for buffs, there are several that are at a similar level so it's hard to say that one is better than another. I really like haste, but I wouldn't say it's the best. There are others who are at that level.
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3rd-level spells. The point in character development that marks a significant boost to power level. The character-defining spells of a spellcasting class. Since 3rd-level spells are a critical moment on a character's journey to level 20, I'm curious about what other D&D 5e players think is the best 3rd-level spell. I'm using spells across all class spell lists, but I will be only using spells from the core set. This includes the PHB, XGtE, and TCoE. I'm doing so for the sake of simplicity.
Note: When filling out the poll, do not check more than 3 boxes.
(Did not include paladin or ranger spells)
Brains over brawn? Mind over matter? These canny warriors rightly answer, "Why not both?" - Tasha
My Homebrews: Monsters, Magic Items, Spells, Races
Rhulg- Hobgoblin Gunsmith
In my opinion, there is little doubt. The best offensive spell is Hypnotic Pattern. The best defensive spell is Counterspell. The best Utility spell is Revivify.
Hypnotic Pattern is wonderful, mainly because they do NOT get another save. Counterspell nullifies all spells that use a slot of 3rd or lower. And who does not want to come back from the dead?
I had to vote for Counterspell... if you've got access to Counterspell and you don't take Counterspell... well, you picked wrong. You should have Counterspell.
That said... for me that's a purely mechanical choice. For my personal taste I just really like Haste. It always feels like a huge game changer... one of my favorite spells to hand out as a support character. And I also really like that there's a hard price to it when concentration is lost... I know that's a big factor in why some people prefer other buff spells, but I actually think it makes the game more exciting. I'd kind of like if there were more spells that had some kind of "kick back" when they complete.
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Counterspell it has the most potential out of everything on the list as it can stop a 9th level spell
also I have no idea why this isn’t on the bard spell list
Spells like Fireball, Counterspell, Revivify etc. are all probably at the top of the list from a game mechanics perspective. But if you're talking about my personal favorite just from a "fun" perspective, it's definitely Enemies Abound. It brings back the fun of playing as Ezio in the Assassin's Creed games, shooting someone in the enemy camp with one of those poison darts then watching him go crazy and attack all his allies while you sit quietly on the roof of the neighboring building and laugh :)
The number of people who sleep on Conjure Animals makes me sad.
If you summon a small army, you can cause utter mayhem on the battlefield. Even if they don't have a ton of HP, adding 8 of anything onto the combat field is bound to help your party by causing distractions or eating up attacks. And if you choose to conjure beefier animals (like two dire wolves), you get some great tanking and offensive opportunities. And this spell just gets better as you upcast.
I've used Conjure Animals to med-evac the party out of a collapsing dungeon. I've used it to play keep away with a roc. Any spell that effectively gives you anywhere from 1-8 extra actions in a round at its base level of casting is worthy of respect.
Most DMs let the PCs know what spell is being cast for free and that makes counterspell incredible powerful. If, as Jeremy Crawford suggests, it takes one PC to use their reaction to to attempt to identify the spell being cast you are left with either casting it "blind" possibly agaist a firebolt or burning one reaction and if it goes badly either casting it blind or not using the spell. In this circumstance counterspell becomes a lot less useful especialy at lower levels when 3rd level spells are precious and ability modifiers ar elow making a failure on the arcana check more likely.
I hate Conjure animals not because it isn't powerful (it isn't great when the enemy has AoE attacks but plenty of enemies don't) but because adding another 8 combatents into the fray slows things down so much.
Fireball, Hypnotic Pattern and Spirit Guardians are all up there for offensive spells, though all have their strengths and weaknesses. Sprit guardians is weak against a single enemy or enemies who spread out and use ranged attacks, Hypnotic pattern is a save or suck spell so can potentially do nothing, if a character not affected by the spell had magic missile it also becomes less powerful, fireball does more damage than any other spell of similar level though is less useful if the players and enemies are all in the same area, Fire damage is also the most resisted / immuned (if that is a word).
Revivify is very rarely required but when you need it is absolutly fantastic (unless you are out of diamonds!)
I think the best utility spell (I consider revivy a healing spell rather than utility) is tiny hut. It didn't quite make my top 3 but the ability to be certain on getting a long rest unless something with dispel magic notices you is a huge boon, and if you are trekking accoss hot deserts or an arctic waste being able ot rest at a comfortable temperature can also be a lifesaver..
Be a level 11 Artificer and create your Spell Storing item, and choose the level 1 spell catapult, storing 10 uses of Catapult in the item.
Being an Eberron Variant Human: Mark of Handling, you can cast conjure animals, conjuring up 8 beasts of whatever type you like.
Each beast then uses the spell storing item, flinging a rock for 4d8 damage using the Artificer's spell attack modifier, for a potential 32d8 bludgeoning damage on the turn you do this.
Woop woop go go animal gatling gun!
I agree with you on both points. It is the third level spell I use most often in combat. I'm traveling with a Wrecking Crew. If I can keep the opponents magic from stopping them, the wrecking crew will get the rest of the job done. I have some decent choices for damage spells among my 1st and 2nd level spells. But I need Dispel Magic and Counterspell.
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
I'm a Druid and took Circle of Land Arctic purely for SLOW. This spell has saved our group multiple times.
Counterspell is not on the bard list because it is so powerful. Bards have Magical Secrets and they are expected to use it for the 'best' spells, so they purposely did not give Bards some of the more powerful spells.
It looks like I am the only person who selected Fear?
Fear is my favorite third level spell and is also the "best" overall third level spell IMO. Affects a large area and enemies that fail a save are out of the fight for the duration with almost no way to get back into the fight before it is over. I've seen a lot of spells cast but no offensive spell of 3rd level or below is as effective as fear IME. As a control spell Fear is WAY, WAY more effective than Hypnotic Pattern or Slow IME as it usually takes every action from every enemy that fails the save for the entire fight. It is probably the best mass control spell under 6th level.
Counterspell is the most effective/game changing 3rd level spell when it is used, but the very limited opportunities to use it keep it from being the favorite spell overall IMO. It is not very often you get to use it, while you will use lighting bolt, fireball, Spirit guardians, Thunder Step, Fear, etc almost every day you have it prepared and usually to good affect.
To me, Counterspell, unless someone else in the party has it. From there? I'd say a dead heat tie between a few, all dependent on your role in the group.
Haste
Slow
Fireball/Lightning Bolt
Revivify
Honorable mention for sure to Conjure Animals, I agree, highly underrated for how useful it can be. Thunderstep, Mass Healing Word and Call Lightning are pretty good when the situation fits too. Lots of good 3rd level spells, IMO.
Talk to your Players. Talk to your DM. If more people used this advice, there would be 24.74% fewer threads on Tactics, Rules and DM discussions.
Yes. 3rd-level spells are character-defining, so of course many of them will be flashy.
Brains over brawn? Mind over matter? These canny warriors rightly answer, "Why not both?" - Tasha
My Homebrews: Monsters, Magic Items, Spells, Races
Rhulg- Hobgoblin Gunsmith
Haste Vs Slow vs Hypnotic Pattern.
In my personal experience, most of the time, Slow is not worth taking. In situations where it is better than Hypnotic Pattern, you would have won even if no spell was cast.
Counterspell, Revivify and Aura of Vitality are my top picks. Damage can be from any source but these three are the best of what they do.
Title asks best, poll asks favorite...
Best:
Favorite:
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
I think lightning bolt can be better than fireball. they both do 8d6 damage, but lightning bolt is a 100 foot line, not a 20-foot radius, so it is easier to avoid hitting anyone you don't want to hit.
Also lightning damage has a lot less resistances and immunities than fire damage
If you're on a large battlefield, Fireball would be better if multiple enemies are close together, away from you and your friends.
Does anyone else think that 3rd level spells are the best? My favorite is Melf's Minute Meteors, but the best would probably be fireball, counterspell, lightning bolt, revivify, etc.
i am a human being.
In a game where the main motive is to kill things, fireball is the best lvl 3 spell. That's not to say there aren't other good spells out there, but fireball makes all the difference in a game that deals with that.
On the other hand, counterspell is a lifesaver. Probably the best in that regard. I see few people voting for dispel magic, but this is another must that every party should have. There are some DMs cheating here, making impossible odds so you can't skip half a plot with a dispel magic. But objectively that spell is for that.
And then as for buffs, there are several that are at a similar level so it's hard to say that one is better than another. I really like haste, but I wouldn't say it's the best. There are others who are at that level.