A Comprehensive Guide for Every Bard Spell in DnD 5e

Master the Art of Performance

Bards in D&D 5e channel their magic through the power of creation. Unlike other spellcasters, bards weave their spells not from the raw energy of the Weave, but from the harmonious connection between themselves and the world around them.

As full spellcasters, bards enjoy access to a huge spell list full of tons of effective buff, debuff, and utility options, but not an overabundance of damage spells. That somewhat gets resolved once you get access to Magical Secrets and can pick spells from any spell list (hello, Fireball), but lower-level Bards may find they’re using the ol’ faithful damage options overly often.

Bard Spells Tips

Here are some pointers to guide you in selecting the most impactful spells for your paladin:

What are the must-have spells on the Bard spell list?

Essential spells for low-level Bards include classic single-target damage/debuff spells like Vicious Mockery and Dissonant Whispers. Eventually, you can pick up Hypnotic Pattern for crowd control, Polymorph to deal with tricky enemies, and Animate Objects for, frankly, an insane amount of consistent damage.

High-level Bards will reach for Mass Suggestion, Dominate Monster, and True Polymorph as their top-tier spells.

Work With Your Party for Stronger Combos

While Bards may not be able to dish out massive damage, they can certainly combine what they do have with their party’s strengths for greater effect. If you have a Barbarian who’s fighting an enemy in melee range, use Dissonant Whispers to potentially force them to Dash away, giving your Barbarian an Opportunity Attack.

Don’t Forget About Magical Secrets

At 10th level, Bards get access to Magical Secrets, which allows them to choose spells from any spell list. This helps fill in the gaps your Bard may have just as you head into higher-tier play, which is extraordinarily well-timed. But, as we’ve discussed before, Bards will have some gaps because of how focused their spell list is on helping allies and hindering enemies. You’ll want to make the right choices to ensure you’re ready to deal with the more powerful baddies you’ll be going up against.

We’ve created a guide to the Bard’s Magical Secrets feature that has recommendations on which spells to pick up, so be sure to check that out as well.

What is this guide?

This guide is meant as a deep dive into the best spells for the 5e bard. For the full overview of the bard class, check out our bard class guide.

To allow you to scan through the options quickly, we use the following color rating scheme:

• Red : Isn’t going to contribute to the effectiveness of your character build at all
• Orange : Situationally good, but a below-average option otherwise
• Green : A good option
• Blue : A great option, you should strongly consider this option for your character
• Sky Blue: An amazing option. If you do not take this option your character would not be optimized

Bard Spells in D&D 5e

Cantrip

• Blade Ward: The only time this is worth it is if you know for a fact you're going to be taking bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing from a weapon in the next turn which isn't a common occurrence. Otherwise, if you find yourself in a tricky situation and need to mitigate damage for a turn, take the Dodge action.
• Dancing Lights: Solid range and utility when you need to light a dark area. Has very similar effects to the light cantrip, so take your pick of whichever you prefer.
• Friends: Give yourself advantage on CHA checks, but after a minute the target will become hostile. This certainly has its uses, like interrogation or doing a very quick deal with a shopkeeper. Otherwise, the cons outweigh the pros.
• Light: Useful, but there are plenty of ways around having to pick up this spell. As long as your not underwater, simple torch could save you a slot for another cantrip.
• Mage Hand: Mage hand provides a lot of utility for a caster, allowing them to extend the range they can grab or interact with objects, with little combat benefit.
• Mending: Being able to repair mundane object is situationally useful at the best of times, a waste of a cantrip at the worst.
• Message: Often pointless due to unavoidable metagaming, but for roleplaying purposes it’s great.
• Minor Illusion: If used creatively, this cantrip can be the most flexible tool in a spellcaster arsenal.
• Prestidigitation: Extremely versatile, even if the effects are small this cantrip can do a lot.
• Thunderclap: Good AoE damage but targets a common save and can’t be used while stealthing.
• True Strike: Wasting a whole turn just to gain advantage on a single creature the next turn is not what you want to be doing.
• Vicious Mockery: This is THE bard cantrip. It deals psychic damage and provides a strong debuff on a failed save.

1st level

• Animal Friendship: This will likely get you out of at least one low-level beast encounter.
• Bane: A simple and effective low-level debuff. If you have access to it, bless is strictly better because it doesn't require a CHA saving throw.
• Charm Person: One of the better options for dealing with NPCs outside of combat. Good for quick interactions, but the biggest caveat to this spell is the target knows it was charmed by you once the effect ends.
• Comprehend Languages: Been able to read and understand any language will have its uses at some point. Is it worth it to keep the spell stocked for your whole campaign? Probably not. Is it worth it to stock when you're heading into ancient ruins? Probably.
• Cure Wounds: Healing is important so pick it up if you think you’ll need it.
• Detect Magic: Every party should roll with at least one character who has access to detect magic.
• Disguise Self: Great 1st level infiltration spell.
• Dissonant Whispers: One of the best 1st-level spells in the game. Verbal only components, good range, psychic damage, and can cause an enemy to move away from an ally. Not only does this provide support on the battlefield, but it can also cause an opportunity attack which makes the spell even more powerful.
• Faerie Fire: Giving your allies advantage is really good, especially if you have a rogue or paladin in the party. Invisible creatures can also be a nuisance, so having a way to deal with them as extra value is sweet.
• Feather Fall: It's a situational effect but you’d rather have it and not need it than need it and not have it.
• Healing Word: Great option even if you have a dedicated healer as it can be useful for resetting death saving throws from a distance and only requires a bonus action.
• Heroism: Great buff effect, scales nicely as well.
• Identify: You can spend a short rest in physical contact with a magical item to identify it. In addition, most cursed items are not revealed to be cursed when this spell is cast. The main purpose this spell serves is to identify something quickly, which is rather situational.
• Illusory Script: Much more of a DM, story-based spell than a player-focused one. Pick it up if you need to write a secret message that you can't relay telepathically using message or sending.
• Longstrider: An extra 10 feet of movement is noticeable, especially since this spell lasts for an hour so you can use the buff before you find yourself in a battle or travel long distances in a short time.
• Silent Image: This spell offers great utility for a 1st-level spell. Being able to move the image anywhere in 120ft and make it appear like it's moving makes it quite a bit more effective than minor illusion and will certainly help when you need to bamboozle an enemy (or watch some fantasy TV).
• Silvery Barbs: Probably one of the more broken spells in 5th Edition. Silvery barbs allows you to automatically grant disadvantage to any creature when they succeed on an attack roll, ability check, or saving throw. This may seem innocent enough, but when used in higher-level play and when noted that there is no saving throw to resist the effect, it can make short work of a legendary monster's Legendary Resistances when saving against powerful spell effects. Essentially, silvery barbs acts like a second casting of a high-level spell, for the low price of a 1st-level spell slot and a reaction. Yes, using your reaction means you won't be able to counterspell. But in most circumstances, especially when fighting a non-caster legendary monster, it can begin to trivialize encounters. The secondary effect, wherein you grant another creature advantage on the next attack roll, ability check, or saving throw is simply icing on top of the extremely powerful cake.
• Sleep: Sleep is a very good 1st level spell slot. It can easily end encounters at lower levels. By the time you reach 5th-level  it will be pretty useless unless you want a semi-consistent way of none lethal damage.
• Tasha’s Hideous Laughter: Poor man’s hold person. Still a great spell but the fact that they get to make saves after each time they take damage drastically reduces its effectiveness. If you can, save this for non-humanoids and use hold person on humanoids.
• Thunderwave: A fantastic, low-level way to knock opponents back if you find yourself in a sticky situation. Damage isn’t bad either but it targets CON saves.
• Unseen Servant: Not really much more effective than a mage hand at the end of the day.

2nd level

• Animal Messenger: This has a lot of caveats. If you have someone in your party with sending you will never need this.
• Blindness/Deafness: Very effective debuff that doesn’t require concentration. The only downside is that it targets CON.
• Borrowed Knowledge: If your party is lacking a critically important skill, getting time limited proficiency can come in handy.
• Calm Emotions: The fact that this spell has two different use cases makes it decent, even if those events may not come up too often. Enemies often have effects that charm or frighten in an area of effect, so being able to suppress those effects also in an area of your choosing could save your whole party. When used on enemies, you can make them non-hostile for a whole minute, giving you enough time to escape. The main issue with this spell is the concentration and the relatively small radius.
• Cloud of Daggers: If you can get this into a chokepoint you can do amazing damage.
• Crown of Madness: This spell has a lot of crippling limitations because of its powerful effect at such a low level.
• Detect Thoughts: Useful spell for interrogations, or to determine if there are any hidden creatures near your location.
• Enhance Ability: Decent buff before you go into combat. Also has a fair amount of utility for just about any out-of-combat situation.
• Enthrall: This is not a good spell.
• Heat Metal: A go-to damage spell for enemies wearing metal armor (or have knives stuck in them). No save, great damage, and can cause the creature to attack with disadvantage or lose their weapon.
• Hold Person: This can be encounter-breaking against humanoids. Scales well with levels.
• Invisibility: Great infiltration spell.
• Knock: Great spell if you don’t have a rogue around and works better than Thieves’ Tools anyway since it works automatically. If you need to be stealthy, keep in mind that this spell is audible from 300 feet away.
• Lesser Restoration: Diseases and conditions do come up from time to time, so you’ll be happy to have this when they do.
• Locate Animals or Plants: Extremely situational spell. So much so that it will likely not see use in an entire campaign.
• Locate Object: 1,000 feet isn't a particularly wide radius but this spell will be extremely useful when it's needed. Great for city campaigns where everything is packed in tighter together.
• Magic Mouth: Useful if you want to Mission Impossible-style deliver a message when someone opens an envelope or something. Otherwise, message and sending make this obsolete.
• Phantasmal Force: There are extreme situations where this could be useful, but it is simply not a good spell.
• Pyrotechnics: Limited because it needs a nonmagical flame to be able to work. Can be comboed with bonfire.
• See Invisibility: If you know you're going to be coming across invisible creatures, this spell is worth it to stock. Otherwise, faerie fire is a better option as it allows party members to see the invisible creatures as well.
• Shatter: Decent AoE that can be super effective against specific creatures. Also good for destroying inanimate objects.
• Silence: Silence is a niche spell with a high ceiling. It can be used in stealth scenarios but it’s most powerful usage is if you can target a caster who won’t be able to cast spells requiring a verbal component. Of course, it’s only a 20ft radius so you will either need to be fighting in close quarters or will need to find a way to prevent the caster from moving.
• Suggestion: Never underestimate the power of suggesting a course of action to an NPC. Yes, Mr. Scary Guard, why don’t you give us the keys to your king’s treasure vault?
• Warding Wind: Pretty much the only time this is useful is when you’re caught in a combat situation where you are surrounded by ranged enemies or if you need to keep out a deadly gas.
• Zone of Truth: Great for when you need to gain the trust of some NPCs, or when you don’t quite trust them yourself.

3rd level

• Bestow Curse: If you can get within touch range, this can be an extremely powerful debuff for a single, tough enemy. The effect that causes the enemy to make a WIS save or waste their turn is extremely powerful and is made more powerful because they only get one chance to save, at the initial casting of the spell.
• Clairvoyance: Not many situations will call for this spell but it can be useful for scouting.
• Dispel Magic: Always make sure at least one of your party members has this.
• Enemies Abound: Enemies abound only works in fights with more than one enemy, if your allies are willing to ignore that enemy, and if the enemy isn’t immune to being frightened. Really only useful for causing a stir from a hidden position.
• Fear: Amazing crowd control spell. Particularly good because they don’t get to retry the save until they break line of sight.
• Feign Death: Extremely niche. Could be useful if you are attempting to recreate Romeo and Juliet.
• Glyph of Warding: Costly components and a long casting time are the major hurdles in the way of making glyph of warding a stellar spell. As it stands, its probably the best way to set a trap if you know where the enemy will be coming through and have at least an hour to prepare.
• Hypnotic Pattern: Good range, good AoE, and its effect are potent. Incapacitating multiple enemies is a fantastic tactic to passively flee from the situation or do massive damage with automatic crits. The effect can be ended by a friendly creature taking an action to wake the affected creature from its stupor, but that will eat up a lot of action economy. Either way you slice it, hypnotic pattern is one of the best crowd control spells at this level.
• Intellect Fortress: Only useful in very specific circumstances. Say, for example, when wandering into a den of Mind Flayers.
• Leomund ’s Tiny Hut: This spell is both better than it looks at first glance and worse than it looks on a second glance. Being able to long rest uninterrupted or use it as cover anywhere you want is really useful. However, if you abuse it your DM will make you pay, like setting up an ambush just outside the dome. Even still, this spell is a fan favorite
• Major Image: Much like silent image, major image is really only limited by your imagination. A 20ft cube is quite the space to play around in and fit just about any creature (within reason).
• Nondetection: Your campaign will really cater to this spell for it to have any kind of application. This is much more of a DM-focused spell, players often won’t find a use for this once in an entire campaign.
• Plant Growth: Slows down pesky enemies moving around a lot or trying to escape, but not particularly good at either. Also cool for story beats to restore nature that has been devastated by war.
• Sending: Solid communication spell for at least one party member to have.
• Speak with Dead: Get some interesting lore, help solve a mystery, or get advice on how to proceed through a dungeon.
• Speak with Plants: The flavor is spot on with this spell, it just doesn’t have that many uses.
• Stinking Cloud: Used in the right circumstances, like locking enemies in a room then casting this into the locked room or when an enemy has to funnel through a "choke" point (heh). Outside of these specific situations, it's quite mediocre.
• Tongues: Most of the time, it will be tough to justify a 3rd-level spell for the effect this produces. Of course, understanding a creature and allowing it to understand you could have the potential to stop a terrible situation unfolding. This is a spell that would be worthwhile to prepare for specific situations, but is too niche to consider stocking all the time.

4th level

• Charm Monster: Charm person, just for any creature. Great for avoiding fights with potentially hostile monsters.
• Compulsion: On a failed save you can move a creature slightly, but they can still take an action. Not great.
• Confusion: Bestow curse is a better targeted debuff and is a full spell slot lower.
• Dimension Door: Teleport, with a friend, over a much longer distance than misty step. Unfortunately, it’s two spell slots higher than misty step and a full action to cast. Still, this spell can save your bacon is a tight circumstance.
• Freedom of Movement: It’s nice to give extra movement options to allies, but there are better buff spells and this one is pretty situational.
• Greater Invisibility: Being able to attack or cast spells while invisible is a huge upgrade from regular invisibility. Give it to a melee party member and watch them get advantage on every attack and disadvantage on attacks against them, bonus points if it’s a paladin or rogue for extra crit + Divine Smite / Sneak Attack potential.
• Hallucinatory Terrain: This is more of a DM-spell than a player-focused on. Particularly creative players will be able to find a use, but most of the time this is unnecessary.
• Locate Creature: More thorough than locate animals or plants, and can be used to find people. It’s still pretty situational.
• Polymorph: The best save or suck spell at this level. The hour duration makes transforming a hostile creature and running away a viable option or will give you more time to finish of its friends before it transforms back. This also allows you to shape-shift a friendly party member into a beast for combat or exploration purposes. The sheer utility this spell offers makes it an incredibly effective spell to keep in your arsenal.

5th level

• Animate Objects: Turn your trash into treasure. Send an army of pebbles at your opponents for 1d4 + 4 damage with +8 attacks.
• Awaken: Love the flavor of this spell. It’s great for your traveling animal buddies, or, if you have enough time and money, you can create an army of trees that would make Treebeard proud. It is not useful in combat but this is one of those spells that can create really powerful effects if you have some downtime.
• Dominate Person: Amazing spell when fighting humanoids. Taking over the mind of an enemy can completely swing the direction of the encounter. While spells like hold person can take an enemy of the fight, dominate person can make that enemy into an ally essentially creating a two for one. If you are fighting against humanoids a lot in the late game, this is a simply outstanding spell.
• Dream: While it may not look like much, dream is an insanely powerful spell. First of all, it can target a creature no matter how far away they are, as long as you know the creature and the creature has to sleep. Second, you're able to stay in that creature's dream for up to 8 hours, which can allow a ton of time to communicate with the creature for long periods without being attacked. Last, and most importantly, you can negate the effects of a long rest AND do damage. This might not be an issue for a high level enemy with legendary resistances, but can definitely cause issues for less powerful foes. This spell is definitely a slow burn type of spell but can have massive ramifications in the long run.
• Geas: Not for use in combat but has extremely potent effects if you can cast it. The max damage this can do is 5d10 a day, so it's best used on a particularly influential commoner.
• Greater Restoration: Great spell to have that can get you or party members out of very tricky situations.
• Hold Monster: Spell that can take a creature out of the fight. Allows for a save after each turn which makes it worse than banishment for consistently keeping a monster out of the fight, but the monster can be attacked with advantage which will make quick work of it after it fails a save or two.
• Legend Lore: Gain some knowledge on things of legendary importance. While cool, it doesn’t do much most of the time.
• Mass Cure Wounds: Range, multiple targets, and decent healing power. One of the best bang-for-your-buck spells if you have multiple party members down.
• Mislead: Pretty decent scouting spell or opportunity to plan an ambush. Pretty high spell slot for the meager effect though.
• Modify Memory: A relatively powerful spell for infiltration and social encounters. There are a lot of caveats imposed on this spell, mainly to ensure it doesn't become too broken. If you'll be heading into an enemy fortress or to a rival's political meeting, this is a good spell to stock.
• Planar Binding: The 1 hour casting time makes this a fairly hard spell to pull off. If you manage to pull it off, this can be an extremely powerful spell when combined with summon greater demon or something of the like.
• Raise Dead: A more powerful resurrection spell than revivify because it has a 10 day time span and can cure Poisons and Diseases. Unfortunately, if you resurrectee is missing their head or other body parts, you'll have to wait until you get resurrection.
• Scrying: Useful but niche.
• Seeming: Neat out of combat spell.
• Skill Empowerment: This spell is very flexible since you can give any creature Expertise in any skill. It is quite expensive at 5th level and it works best when the creature needs to use the same skill multiple times.
• Synaptic Static: Fireball damage and a debuff rolled into one. Be careful using it on beasts as they are likely to have an INT 2 or less.
• Teleportation Circle: Great teleport spell that requires some prep before it can become really effective. That said, it's nice to not have the ability to fail during your teleport like is possible with teleport. Awesome utility spell to have in your back pocket.

6th level

• Eyebite: Clunky spell with powerful effects. Essentially, as long as you maintain concentration, you can use your action to imbue a powerful debuff. Unfortunately, casting something like fear or hypnotic pattern will likely allow you to impose conditions on more enemies, for less action economy, for a lower spell slot.
• Find the Path: Lousy effect, especially for a spell at 6th-level.
• Guards and Wards: This spell's literal only use is to create your very own haunted house. Yeah, it'd be fun to use if your stronghold was being invaded and you had at least 10 minutes to prepare. Otherwise, this is certainly more of a DM-focused spell.
• Mass Suggestion: Amazing charm effect. No saving throws, target up to twelve creatures, and a duration of 24 hours.
• Otto’s Irresistible Dance: At the surface, Otto’s irresistible dance may look unappealing because Tasha’s hideous laughter can be seen as a substitution at a 1st-level spell slot. Well, the biggest thing that makes Otto’s worthy of a 6th-level slot is that there is no save, the effect just happens. This allows a whole round of attacks with advantage against a single powerful enemy, while the enemy has to spend its entire action (maybe even using a Legendary Resistance) saving from the spell. In many scenarios, Tasha’s will be what you want to use, but if you are facing off against a dragon, you’ll want Otto’s.
• Programmed Illusion: Another situation where this spell is limited by your creativity but similar effects can be achieved with major illusion for a lower spell slot.
• True Seeing: Gain the abilities of truesight, spotting secret doors, and seeing into the ethereal plane, all without concentration. This will be effective at some point but a 6th level spell is steep.

7th level

• Dream of the Blue Veil: This spell has more campaign-derailing, shenanigan potential than just about any other spell short of wish. Do your DM a favor and let them know your plans before casting this spell. Because this is more of a plot-based spell, it will not receive a rating.
• Etherealness: This spell allows you to fly or move through solid objects, while not being affected or able to affect creatures not on the Ethereal Plane. You can only target yourself but there is no concentration. Pretty middle of the road all around.
• Forcecage: No save and no way to get out once you get put in. This spell is a great way to contain a scary melee creature.
• Mirage Arcane: The sheer scope of this spell is insane and is truly only limited by the imagination of the caster.
• Mordenkainen’s Magnificent Mansion: Love the flavor but a 7th level spell slot is a stretch for this limited effect.
• Mordenkainen’s Sword: Terrible amount of damage for a 7th level spell.
• Project Image: Can be used to distract enemies or as a pretty bad scouting tool. You or your party members should have better ways to do this by now.
• Regenerate: Not much more healing than mass cure wounds, but it does have the advantage of growing limbs.
• Resurrection: Death is temporary when you’ve got resurrection. Because there is no time limit like revivify, this can be stocked when required.
• Symbol: Can be useful if you're setting a trap or protecting an area from enemies. Can be used in a pinch because of the 1 minute casting time. Unfortunately, it's quite expensive due to the 1,000 gp worth of powdered diamond or opal. This spell is certainly more DM-focused than player-focused.
• Teleport: Instantly transport yourself and up to eight willing creatures. Of course, there is a chance of a mishap, but a full party teleport is nothing to scoff at.

8th level

• Dominate Monster: Extremely good option to help swing the tides of battle in your favor. If you manage to dominate one of your enemies, you're 2-for-1ing the opponent by adding an ally to your side while subtracting an enemy from your enemy's side.
• Feeblemind: Encounter ending debuff if you hit a spellcaster with it. Usually, spellcasters at this level will have a very strong INT save or Legendary Resistance.
• Glibness: A seemingly small effect for such a high-level spell, although it can be useful in niche circumstances.
• Mind Blank: A full 24 hours of immunity to psychic damage, reading thoughts, divination spells, and being charmed. Mind Blank is surprisingly effective during high-level encounters as a defensive spell.
• Power Word Stun: You can auto-stun a creature that has less than 150hp, but they get to make a save at the end of each of their turns.

9th level

• Foresight: Insane buff and it’s not concentration.
• Mass Polymorph: Take up to 10 creatures out of the fight or turn your entire party into T-rexes.
• Power Word Heal: “Overkill” for most situations but can really help turn the tide in the massive battles you’ll be having at 18th-20th-level.
• Power Word Kill: Very mechanically interesting spell. Essentially, you can auto-kill a creature if they have less than 100hp. Now, as a player, we do not know how much HP a monster has, but an Investigation or Insight check might allow some clues as to whether or not they’re close. Still, Meteor Swarm can do, on average, 140 damage (70 on a save), and can hit multiple creatures so this might not be that worth it.
• Psychic Scream: Great damage, targets an uncommon save (INT), stuns on a failed save, and explodes your targets head if they die from the damage.
• True Polymorph: This can be a crazy buff, or an extremely effective way to permanently get rid of a creature. For the buff portion, you can turn a creature into another creature whose challenge rating is equal to or less than the target's. If the creature you're transforming is a player character, the CR matches the character's level. Seeing as challenge rating is meant to match a party of four to five players of that level, you can get a huge power boost by turning into a creature that has a CR equal to your level. For example, a 20th-level character can be turned into an ancient dragon, which would typically take a party of 20th-level adventurers to defeat. On the other hand, if you target an enemy and manage to concentrate successfully for an hour, the effect can be permanent. Therefore you could turn the big bad into a rock or something. Forever.