The Best Arcane trickster Spells for D&D 2024 (5.5e)

Analysing the best spell options for this magical rogue subclass.

Considerations

Arcane tricksters are a little unique among spellcasters with some interactions to be aware of:

• Is it better than sneak attack? – The rogue’s signature move is a single, powerful attack known as a sneak attack. It can be used once per turn without running out of charges and increases with your level allowing it to deal substantial damage. The question to ask yourself when choosing a spell (for combat at least) is whether it’s a better use of your action than a sneak attack (including a potential cunning strike).
• Do the power levels stack up? – Because arcane tricksters get their spells slower than other spellcasters (4th level spells don’t kick in until level 19), you may find some spells lag behind what others are casting at this stage. So just be aware of their relative usefulness in the party.
• Magical ambush – This arcane trickster feature lets you impose disadvantage on saving throws from your spells if you cast them while having the invisible condition. This is an easy condition for you to obtain through the hide cunning action (which grants you the invisible condition). Even if your intelligence isn’t really high, it can make your saving throw spells more likely to work than your spell attacks.

As both sneak attacks and cantrips can be used without expending resources, you might question which is best to use. I’ve created a table below showing average damage per sneak attack Vs different types of cantrips.

Level	Sneak attack	d6 cantrip	d8 cantrip	d10 cantrip	d12 cantrip
1	10	3.5	4.5	5.5	6.5
3	13.5	3.5	4.5	5.5	6.5
5	18	7	9	11	13
7	21.5	7	9	11	13
9	26	7	9	11	13
11	29.5	10.5	13.5	16.5	19.5
13	33	10.5	13.5	16.5	19.5
15	36.5	10.5	13.5	16.5	19.5
17	40	14	18	22	26
19	43.5	14	18	22	26

It’s clear that at all levels, cantrip damage is inferior to sneak attack damage. It’s possible that resistances could be an issue, which can elevate the case for using a cantrip.

There are options for small AoE cantrips that could be worth considering, like acid splash and thunderclap. As a general rule of thumb, you’ll need to hit 3+ targets to roughly reach the same kind of damage levels as sneak attack, but it can give you an option for dealing with small crowds of weak enemies (which rogues tend to be poor at handling).

Cantrips

• Acid splash (2/5) – Normally I’d favour sneak attacks on a rogue, but as this is an AoE spell (and doesn’t require spell slots) it can have it’s uses, even for a rogue. You’ll need to hit 3+ enemies to make this deal similar or more damage than sneak attack. On top of that, sneak attacks are only good against mid-high hp enemies, acid splash is a good alternative for taking on multiple low hp enemies. It’s also a saving throw so casting with magical ambush can help here. Still, the instances where this is worthwhile are limited.
• Blade ward (2/5) – The problem with this is you’re wasting an action and need to use your concentration to be hit maybe a little bit less. Rogues are notorious for being slippery characters that stay away from danger, doing lots of hiding. Chances are, you won’t get enough use out of this.
• Chill touch (1/5) – Sneak attacks are better and can be done at range and your cunning strike can give you better options than no healing for a turn.
• Dancing lights (3/5) – Better than having to carry a torch around in the dark if you don’t have darkvision.
• Elementalism (1/5) – Maybe there are cool effects others can work out that this spell can do, but to me, it all just seems like showmanship.
• Fire bolt (1/5) – Sneak attack is just better.
• Friends (2/5) – If you’re up against a lot of social situations, this can make them a fair bit easier. Unfortunately, it’s limited to a minute and only to non-hostile humanoids making its scope a bit tricky to make work.
• Light (3/5) – Put down a weapon, cast light on it, then pick it up. Now you’ve got a torch without having to use a spare hand. Good for those without darkvision. Sadly you can’t just touch an invisible creature’s armor they’re wearing and cast this to reveal them, that would be a bit powerful for a cantrip.
• Mage hand (5/5) – Great out of combat, and with mage hand legerdemain, becomes great in combat too. Cast and command it with a bonus action now, use it for sleight of hand checks (like nicking keys from a guard), trip guards and it’s invisible!
• Mending (2/5) – This one can be really useful, or not useful at all. It’s just too situational to be reliably of worth.
• Message (3/5) – The range is a bit limiting, but if you’re split up and need to communicate, this is a good way to do it. No spell slots needed.
• Mind sliver (2/5) – This could be alright if you want to cause saving throws on enemies, but it’s only a 1d4 reduction at the expense of using your superior sneak attack instead. A good spell for other classes, but not so much for an arcane trickster.
• Minor illusion (5/5) – You’re a rogue, you’ll often be sneaking around and needing to distract people making this extra useful for you. The more creative you are, the more use you’ll get out of this.
• Poison spray (1/5) – Still not as good as sneak attack.
• Prestidigitation (3/5) – I don’t think I’m as enamored with this spell as many others, but it can be a useful utility spell if you’re creative enough. You already have mage hand for cantrip utility, minor illusion is your next best option, this probably comes in about 3rd or 4th in my opinion so may not be important enough to make it onto your spell list, but it’s a solid enough option if you want it.
• Ray of frost (1/5) – Not better than sneak attack unfortunately. If you want to land an effect, cunning strike has better ones than slowing a target.
• Shocking grasp (1/5) – Also not better than sneak attack and rogues have other ways of dodging out of combat if they need to (or can just use ranged attacks).
• Thunderclap (2/5) – Although technically capable of dealing more damage than a sneak attack under certain circumstances (like being in the middle of a group of enemies, especially low hp enemies), this is precisely the place you don’t want to be as a rogue. If you want an AoE cantrips, go for acid splash as it has range.
• Toll the dead (1/5) – Sneak attack is still better than even this 1d12 cantrip. Sneak attack will also give you more versatility with cunning strike and the option for multiple attacks to land it and often attacking with advantage.
• True strike (4/5) – This actually interacts with sneak attack as you make a weapon attack as part of the spell. This just makes that weapon attack have the possibility of radiant damage and increases damage slightly at higher levels. There are possible trade offs here though. You’ll be using your intelligence modifier for the attack instead of your dexterity. If this is higher, that’s great, but most arcane tricksters are better off focusing more on dexterity than intelligence so you may be at a slight disadvantage here. The other challenge comes from dual wielding for the extra light property attack you can get. The problem here is this relies on taking the attack action, but true strike uses the magic action and makes an attack as part of that so I don’t think you can use this alongside dual wielding. So this is decent, but only for single weapon, high intelligence rogues.

Level 1 spells

• Alarm (3/5) – Making sure you aren’t surprised by an intruder is decent, but situational. It kind of depends on how your DM approaches rests and similar situations (and whether they like to ambush you). It’s a ritual so won’t eat into your precious spell slots at least.
• Burning hands (3/5) – Decent low level AoE spell for dealing with crowds (which rogues are typically quite poor at). It doesn’t take many foes to catch in this to make it do more damage than sneak attack.
• Charm person (3/5) – Pretty good if you’re sneaking about and need to get a guard or something else on side.
• Chromatic orb (5/5) – The damage here is decent and the ability to change damage types means you should be able to avoid resistances. What makes this even better is your ability to potentially hit additional targets. You’ve got a 34% chance of rolling a double, but if you upcast this, the probability gets higher becoming 59% at level 2, 79% at level 3 and 92% at level 4. Plus you can have it bounce as many times as the level it’s cast at. This plays absolute havoc on whether it’s worth casting instead of sneak attack! As a level 1 spell though, it will average 13.5 damage per target. With it bouncing 34% of the time, it should average 18.1 damage. You’ll average 13.5 damage from sneak attack (assuming using a shortsword) at level 3 when you first get this spell. Sneak attack will equal this damage at level 5, but by level 7, you can upcast this as a level 2 spell making it more powerful. You can see exactly how powerful in my chromatic orb guide.
• Color spray (2/5) – Blinding multiple enemies with a single spell is decent, but it’s only for one turn.
• Comprehend languages (2/5) – It’s rare that not understanding a language would be a blocker to your game progression. And if it is, your DM probably needs to come up with better challenges.
• Detect magic (4/5) – Someone needs this in the party and as it can be cast as a ritual, you don’t need to eat into precious spell slots.
• Disguise self (4/5) – Great for a rogue hoping to pass themself off as someone else.
• Expeditious retreat (2/5) – Retreating is rare, and having to be consistently faster than your enemy is even rarer, especially with bonus action dash.
• False life (3/5) – Decent number of temporary hit points. You can cast in preparation for a battle too so no need to expend your action during combat.
• Feather fall (4/5) – Really situational, but really useful if you ever do need it.
• Find familiar (5/5) – Really useful for all sorts of things including the help action, sneaking around and getting places even a rogue can’t. Mage hand legerdemain can perform some of these functions but both can work together quite nicely as familiars don’t require a bonus action to command.
• Fog cloud (3/5) – Lots of uses for heavily obscuring an area with fog when you’re a rogue. Particularly in making it hard for others to see what you’re doing, especially if you’re doing something you shouldn’t.
• Grease (3/5) – Really good in narrow areas like dungeons, especially if you want to fight enemies from a distance or stop them in the grease in melee combat giving them the chance of constantly slipping.
• Ice knife (2/5) – If you want to cause a small AoE amount of damage, acid splash will do the same amount of damage other than the initial 1d10 to the target by level 5. Otherwise, sneak attack is usually going to be better.
• Identify (1/5) – You can usually work out what a magic item is without using a spell slot.
• Illusory script (1/5) – It’ll be rare to find a use for this. At least it can be cast as a ritual, but feels like a big waste of a prepared spell.
• Jump (3/5) – An extra 20ft of movement for a bonus action each turn of combat with no concentration required is decent. Or you can use it to jump across long distances or up buildings. Can be useful, especially at low levels when flight is harder to come by.
• Longstrider (2/5) – Mostly you need extra speed in combat so unless you’re expecting multiple encounters very close together, this feels like a worse version of jump, that also doesn’t let you jump really far. Plus it takes up an action.
• Mage armor (3/5) – +1 AC for most of an adventuring day is not a bad option. It’s better for wizards and sorcerers that don’t have an armoured option, but decent for you too. Just be aware, you’ll consistently be a level 1 spells slots down each day.
• Magic missile (3/5) – The damage is worse than sneak attack, and that gap widens as you progress in levels, but it is an automatic hit and can target multiple enemies. If you absolutely must hit, this is the spell you want, but don’t expect it to do much to a big sack of hit points! And also, keep in mind that sneak attacks are quite reliable for a rogue with easy advantage and even heroic inspiration, so they’re pretty reliable too. Not the best spell for an arcane trickster, but decent enough.
• Protection from evil and good (4/5) – A little situational, but there’s a wide range of creatures that this protects you from so you’re bound to come across them at some point.
• Ray of sickness (2/5) – An average of 9 damage and the poisoned condition is easy to replicate with cunning strike and sneak attack. Sneak attack will deal more damage even from level 3 and the poisoned condition will last a minute. This only gives the poisoned condition for a turn (even if it always works on a hit). It only becomes weaker in comparison to sneak attack as you gain levels.
• Shield (3/5) – With uncanny dodge, you already have a reaction protection. This is better in the sense that it can stop an entire attack, but only attacks that barely hit. But it does cost a spell slot. I’d be tempted to rely on uncanny dodge for that reason. It’s still a good spell, just not as good for a rogue.
• Silent image (4/5) – A really good option for a rogue that needs distractions for sneaking around. It’s more versatile than minor illusion, but will cost a spell slot for the privilege.
• Sleep (4/5) – It’s a small AoE, but if you can catch multiple enemies in this, the odds of success increase a lot and can be fairly substantial. Be aware though that the saving throw on the 2nd turn won’t be taken with disadvantage, even if you were using magical ambush on the first turn.
• Spellfire flare (2/5) HoF – In terms of raw damage, the dice are equal to inflict wounds, but inflict wounds will deal half damage on a successful saving throw, this just misses. However, this is ranged (inflict wounds requires touch) and it ignores half and three quarters cover. Where it gets interesting is with upcasting as it creates separate blasts like scorching ray. It has one less blast than scorching ray, but the damage at level 2 is slightly higher, and because we’re dealing with d10s instead of d6s, it scales better at even higher levels. But these spells tend not to be great for a sneak attack rogue unfortunately.
• Tasha’s Hideous Laughter (3/5) – Sleep is a better option here as you can affect multiple enemies. Still reasonably effective if you have a high enough intelligence or cast it while invisible.
• Tenser’s floating disk (1/5) – Far too situational to be wasted on your meagre spell supply.
• Thunderwave (2/5) – Technically a decent spell, but difficult for an arcane trickster to properly take advantage of. You’ll need to be in the centre of lots of enemies, and away from allies (a very bad place for a rogue to be). You’ll also want to be invisible to help your saving throws, but doing that in the middle of enemies is challenging.
• Unseen servant (2/5) – This is decent, but you already have mage hand legerdemain to do many of these things. A familiar is probably better for anything else. Good for other spellcasters, but less so for arcane tricksters.
• Wardaway (2/5) HoF – The damage isn’t big but the restrictions are kind of limiting. Half speed and lose an action or a bonus action is annoying, but this is only for one turn at most. My issue with this is that the damage isn’t great and neither is the debuff. If I want to nullify, then sleep or Tasha’s hideous laughter are better. If I want damage, then magic missile, spellfire flare or chromatic orb are better. I’d rather do one thing well than 2 things badly.
• Witch bolt (2/5) – This isn’t as good as sneak attack and you have too many other things to use your bonus action on. You don’t want it occupied with this spell.

Level 2 spells

• Alter self (4/5) – Kind of like disguise self with extras. You won’t want to be making unarmed strikes, but a swim speed is sometimes useful. The disguise elements are less restrictive than disguise self, which is mainly why you’re here.
• Arcane lock (2/5) – There are uses for this, but it tends to be too situational
• Arcane vigor (2/5) – 2d8 healing isn’t that great and realistically, you’re better off using your bonus action to avoid getting hit at all, by hiding or disengaging.
• Augury (4/5) – With this being a ritual, you could really use it a lot, like at every important decision you make. The challenge you get is it could easily just be useless information you get or based on your DM’s expectations. It’s still a really powerful tool though.
• Blindness/deafness (4/5) – Solid enough saving throw spells with the benefit of not requiring concentration elevating it a point.
• Blur (3/5) – Solid defensive option, but works best on spellcasters that are actually placing themselves in harms way. Rogues do the opposite and I’d suggest tactics should be more about staying away from danger in the first place, making this potentially less useful.
• Cloud of daggers (2/5) – Unless you can block a 5ft wide corridor with this, it’s just a waste of a spell slot and you can save the spell slot and use sneak attack instead.
• Continual flame (1/5) – There are other ways to create light without using a 2nd level spell slot. Yes I know it lasts forever, no that doesn’t change my opinion.
• Crown of madness (3/5) – The challenge with this is you’ll need to maintain it using your action to continue its effects. This is an acceptable sacrifice if you come across someone powerful, but lacking in the wisdom department. It’s a high action price, but worth it if you can make it work.
• Darkness (3/5) – If you want a portable version of fog cloud, you could take this instead (maybe because you have something like blindsight or you just want to shroud yourself in darkness). Just cast it on a sword or something else easily portable. Otherwise, fog cloud has a similar, more stationary effect.
• Darkvision (3/5) – The best way to see in the dark if you don’t already have darkvision.
• Death armor (5/5) HoF – Advantage on death saving throws is fine, but it’s the kind of buff you don’t really want to need (and often won’t need). The important bit here is the extra damage. The wording is once per turn the damage can be dealt, that means it can affect every enemy that makes a melee attack against the target. That damage can soon rack up, even if it is spread between multiple enemies. You’ll want to pop it on a tanky ally that’ll throw themself into the middle of the fray (like a barbarian). The longer you can keep that ally on their feet, the better, so healing spells will be great. You can cast ahead of combat and it doesn’t require concentration making it an excellent buff!
• Deryan’s helpful homunculi (1/5) HoF – Essentially faster crafting. There’s an issue here though. This will cost you 100gp every time you use it and as it only lasts 8hrs, will only help for a single day of crafting (so you get through 2 days of crafting while they’re helping). Considering that anything worth crafting and spending an extra 100gp making is going to take several days at least to craft, this just seems like poor economics, especially considering you’re likely crafting for the cheaper gear anyway. This just seems like a pointless spell to me. However, there is perhaps a work around here. Using circle magic, you can use the supplant option with 2 other spellcasters to remove the material cost entirely. But you are reliant on circle magic rules being used at your table and 2 other spellcasters available to help.
• Detect thoughts (3/5) – There are interesting ways to use this for both stealth and social situations, but taking advantage of it is a bit situational, depends on your DM’s generosity and can go wrong with that wisdom saving throw. Take the hide action first though to give disadvantage on the saving throw.
• Dragon’s breath (3/5) – This is kind of like reusable burning hands for a whole combat that you can grant to someone else. If you’re going to be dealing with hordes, this will be better than your sneak attack. Or you could cast it on someone else with less precious attacks (like a familiar of you have one).
• Elminster’s elusion (3/5) HoF – Decent magical protection that you can cast ahead of combat and with just a bonus action. It will consume your concentration, but if you’re up against spellcasters, this might well be worth the cost.
• Enhance ability (4/5) – Use it for tense stealth segments or tricky social situations to get extra good at skills.
• Enlarge/reduce (3/5) – Decent buff or debuff. Works nicely on grapplers like monks so they can grapple larger things and do more damage (at the same time if they have the grappler feat). Or cast it against a high level enemy your party grappler wants to grapple. It’s not much good casting on yourself unless you’re small and want to become tiny for stealth reasons.
• Flaming sphere (2/5) – Like a slightly better version of cloud of daggers. It has a larger radius, affects creatures within 5ft on the first turn and can be moved with a bonus action instead of an action. The damage is a little lower though and it has to be rolled rather than teleported. Despite being better, it’s too low damage to spend your very important bonus action on making it hard to recommend.
• Gentle repose (1/5) – Any creature important enough to aid with this spell, could usually have had something else cast to prevent it decaying too much. In fact, a cleric could already have had revivify for 2 levels at this point (for recent deaths) and gets raise dead in 2 more turns, making this largely redundant.
• Gust of wind (2/5) – Decent for corridors, poor for small or large spaces. This makes it too situational to be regularly useful.
• Hold person (4/5) – Great save or suck spell. With magical ambush too, this can be easier to make work.
• Invisibility (4/5) – Brilliant for a stealth based character. You’ll only get one use of magical ambush with this on so it’s better for sneaking around than combat (unless you’re escaping combat). But this is what cunning action hide is for anyway.
• Knock (1/5) – This is a spell you pick if you don’t have a rogue. As someone adept at unpicking locks, this is a high price to pay with your limited number of level 2 spells.
• Levitate (3/5) – Useful for scaling tall buildings and scouting (which rogues will do a lot of). You can also nullify an enemy to some extent with this, especially if they don’t have ranged options.
• Locate object (2/5) – Theoretically, this can be useful as some kind of bug you can use to track an enemy. Can also help you find important items, but it’s also highly situational and you could easily go an entire campaign without having the chance to use this.
• Magic mouth (1/5) – This can have it’s uses, but is also highly situational and relies on fairly uncommon circumstances to be useful.
• Magic weapon (4/5) – Get more accurate with your sneak attacks and do a little more damage. Plus make your weapon magical. You can cast it ahead of combat too.
• Melf’s acid arrow (2/5) – An average of 15 damage across 2 turns isn’t that great. At this level, you’ll already be doing more damage with sneak attack. This only has the advantage of always doing at least some damage, but personally, I’d just upcast chromatic orb.
• Mind spike (1/5) – The problem with this is the damage is low and you have to be able to see the creature to hit it and then nullify future invisibility attempts. Problem is, you often don’t know you’re going to face something that can turn invisible until it turns invisible. At best, this works against enemy rogues. There are better ways to tackle invisibility though.
• Mirror image (3/5) – Good option if you want some extra protection.
• Misty step (3/5) – You have other ways of getting out of trouble, but misty step is better (at the expense of a spell slot). It’ll get you out of grapples, adds to your movement and can give you to hard to reach places. It loses a point for the arcane trickster as you have disengage as a bonus action which will usually be enough, but it’s still a really solid spell.
• Nystul’s magic aura (1/5) – This is a bit niche in its application and is probably more of a DM’s tool than anything else. Really you’re trying to conceal a disguise or the true nature of an artefact or weapon. A lich could use it to pass as not being undead for instance. It’s highly circumstantial and rarely going to be of use.
• Phantasmal force (3/5) – If you’re creative, you can do a lot of interesting things with this spell. False bridges, fake ground or holes are all possibilities as well as scary creatures.
• Ray of enfeeblement (1/5) – The best enemies to cast this on (strong, melee brawlers) are likely the best at resisting this (constitution saving throw) making this a tad tricky. It still does something on a failure, but the issue you have is hold person will completely disable an opponent, this only partially does so, making it tough to recommend this over something better.
• Rope trick (2/5) – Your mileage out of this probably depends on how often you need somewhere to suddenly hide in. But many of these scenarios are far too circumstantial to be of regular use. Still, if anyone’s going to make a quick and sudden disappearance, it’s a rogue. Of course, you could just cast invisibility.
• Scorching ray (3/5) – Outperforms sneak attack at the level you get this and can target multiple foes. Sneak attack does catch up, but remains single target. A solid enough option.
• See invisibility (4/5) – At least someone in the party needs a way to deal with invisibility and this is probably one of the better low level options. This is even more handy now that the hide action grants the invisible condition.
• Shatter (4/5) – Probably the best pre-level 3 AoE damage dealer. One of your best options at this level for dealing with crowds (which is a weakness of the rogue).
• Spider climb (2/5) – This can be useful sometimes, but I’d probably just go for levitate over this. It’s more versatile and works better for gaining height.
• Suggestion (4/5) – Time for some jedi mind tricks! It’s inferior to hold person at incapacitating enemies, but sometimes you need to have someone do something for you (like to grab the key to the jail cell you’re in). You’ll need to be careful at wording your instructions though.
• Web (5/5) – Strong control spells. Will slow down multiple enemies and can restrain them too.

Level 3 spells

• Animate dead (2/5) – Zombies and skeletons aren’t that great and probably won’t survive the whole 24hrs, plus your bonus action is far too busy to be commanding an undead ally.
• Bestow curse (2/5) – None of these effects are particularly strong. Yes, some of them will work continuously without future saving throws, but I’d still prefer blindness or Tasha’s hideous laughter.
• Blink (3/5) – A decent safety spell where half the time you’ll just disappear from your current plane till the start of your next turn. It takes a turn to setup though and it’s hard to prepare for as you only know if you’ll disappear at the end of your turn, at which point, you might have opted to hide anyway.
• Cacophonic shield (4/5) HoF – Like a slightly less damaging spirit guardians. The emanation’s range is smaller too but you get thunder resistance, ranged attacks have disadvantage against you and you cause deafened with it. These seem like decent trade offs and a great option for non-clerics to grab something like spirit guardians.
• Clairvoyance (4/5) – There’s quite a lot of potential for information gathering with this spell, especially if you want to be privy to conversation not meant for your ears! It’s a bit situational though so you may not get loads of use out of it (then again, you could end up using it a lot).
• Conjure constructs (1/5) HoF – This seems significantly worse than conjure animals (the same level equivalent spell). The range is worse, the damage is significantly worse (conjure animals can affect multiple creatures per round) and even the damage per hit is worse (3d6 Vs 3d10 for conjure animals). The temporary hit points also aren’t that much. For me, this is just a significantly inferior and underwhelming spell for this level.
• Counterspell (3/5) – Preventing a nasty spell is great, but you don’t have a lot of spells slots so be selective in your use of this. Just be aware that while you might waste the caster’s action with this, the 2024 changes mean that the spell slot isn’t wasted so they could just cast the nasty spell again the next turn instead.
• Dispel magic (5/5) – Really useful for ending nasty spell effects.
• Fear (4/5) – Strong way to take a bunch of enemies out of the combat simultaneously, especially if you’re fighting large groups. You do have to get fairly close to the enemy for this one, but rogues are good at jumping in and out of melee range.
• Feign death (1/5) – It’s hard to understand under what niche circumstances this spell would be useful… Perhaps if you need to infiltrate a morgue…
• Fireball (5/5) – Really strong damage dealing AoE spell. Saving throw spells work best for you if you can cast with magical ambush.
• Fly (4/5) – Really useful utility spell. Can keep you safe(ish) in combat and helps you access hard to reach locations (which is great for sneaky character).
• Gaseous form (4/5) – Strong exploration spell. Will get you places you might not ordinarily be able to get.
• Glyph of warding (3/5) – This is a tricky one to rate. With preparation time, it’s a really great way to cause damage to an enemy without using up your action in combat. I believe there’s an exploit here, as concentration spells just last for the duration, without consuming your concentration it seems. So you could cast hold person using the glyph and then still have space to concentrate on haste or something similar. However, this spell is fairly situational as it relies on prep time and knowing an enemy is coming.
• Haste (4/5) – Rogues actually make good targets for this spell giving you another chance to ensure you land sneak attack. You only get 1 attack anyway. Alternatively, if you already landed your sneak attack, you can use it to both disengage, then cunning action dash or hide for example. There’s also the extra AC too. You can also cast it on an ally if they’d benefit from it more.
• Hypnotic pattern (5/5) – Strong method of nullifying multiple enemies in combat. I’d take this over fear as it’s got further range, a bigger AoE and does completely nullify enemies.
• Laeral’s silver lance (2/5) HoF – Basically a weaker lightning bolt that also knocks prone. It has a slightly greater range than lightning bolt but quite a bit less damage. Unless you’re fighting down corridors, this probably isn’t a great option and I’m not convinced that prone is enough for the damage sacrifice.
• Leomund’s tiny hit (3/5) – Basically a safe place to rest each night. You could also use it as a safety measure if you have preparation time for a combat. Essentially you set up the hut and then hop in and out of it, keeping you safe and giving you a place to hide. Just be aware of level 4+ spells that can penetrate the walls.
• Lightning bolt (3/5) – Lines of enemies are harder to find than groups, but can happen in long corridors. Generally though, this tends to be weaker than fireball.
• Magic circle (2/5) – This is generally quite challenging to use as it requires a 1 minute casting time. It also requires certain types of creatures making it far too situational.
• Major image (5/5) – If you’re really creative, this can be amazing! Basically an enhanced minor illusion, rogues in particular can find a lot of uses for spells like this.
• Nondetection (2/5) – This is way too situational to be of much use! It’s really for DMs to keep locations of important things extra secret. Yes, you could prevent your invisibility from being revealed, but it’s not common enough to face enemy spellcasters to make this regularly useful.
• Phantom steed (2/5) – This isn’t a steed built for combat unfortunately as it fades as soon as it takes damage. It’s mainly for travel which can sometimes be convenient, but not that useful in game, especially as the party also need their own steeds to keep up.
• Protection from energy (2/5) – A single resistance can be bypassed easily (by using a different damage type or targeting another character). The options of damage types are quite limited too. Situationally useful against certain creatures.
• Remove curse (2/5) – Sometimes useful, but you could just be a bit more cautious about what magic items you use, or find a friendly cleric to help you. You’re too low on spells known to waste on this.
• Sending (2/5) – A little too situational for regular usage. You only get one message too so it can be used for one piece of communication with others. A 3rd level spells slots is a big price to pay for a message that’s a couple of sentences long.
• Sleet storm (3/5) – A more problematic version of fog cloud. Good for controlling the battlefield and nullifying enemy spellcasters a bit. It’s best in more confined spaces where enemies may be forced to travel through it.
• Slow (4/5) – I prefer hypnotic pattern over this which completely nullifies an enemy rather than severely debilitating them. But this is still very good and has a larger area it can cover.
• Speak with dead (4/5) – Really useful information gathering spell. How well it works partially depends on your DM. I find many players are quite trigger happy in killing rather than knocking unconscious enemies, this is some kind of insurance against that behaviour.
• Stinking cloud (3/5) – Good control spell. Works best in confined spaces and for getting enemies in the places you want them to be. Poisoned is nastier with this spell, but only lasts a turn. Consider combining it with something that restricts movement like sleet storm, grease or web to really get enemies stuck.
• Summon fey (3/5) – Solid summon with decent damage and utility. No need to use a bonus action to command it so this is preserved.
• Summon undead (3/5) – Not quite as good as summon fey which has a few more options to help you out and does more damage. Decent enough, though it’s worth keeping in mind that by the time you get these summons, they may feel a bit underpowered compared to what enemies can do.
• Syluné‘s viper (2/5) HoF – Those temporary hit points may not last long which could lead to an early end for the spell. A climb speed at this level isn’t that impressive and the damage is very weak considering it requires an action. Incapacitated is good, but you could instantly whack a group of enemies with that and more in a single turn with hypnotic pattern. This just doesn’t seem worth it.
• Tongues (2/5) – It’s unlikely that this will be useful very often so not worth taking.
• Vampiric touch (2/5) – This can be easily outperformed by sneak attack and the healing isn’t enough to justify this, plus you can’t use your concentration on anything else.
• Water breathing (2/5) – The need to breath underwater is rare, but can be very useful when needed. The problem here is it’s just too situational to be used often. I’ve gone whole campaigns where I’d never be able to use this. Maybe take if you’ll be involved in a nautical campaign.

Level 4 spells

• Arcane eye (4/5) – Really good investigation spell that can let you spy on a location without setting foot inside.
• Backlash (4/5) HoF – Solid damage reduction and retaliation. For comparison, hellish rebuke will deal 5d10 damage if upcast to this level (average 27.5 damage). Backlash will protect from an average of 14 damage and deal 14 damage back (with a better damage type). So I think they’re comparable in power.
• Banishment (5/5) – Take an enemy out of combat for the duration while you deal with it’s friends. Hold person accomplishes a similar thing but this is better as there aren’t any repeat saving throws and many creatures have poor charisma. Use magical ambush to make this more reliable.
• Blight (2/5) – By the time you get this at level 19, the average damage of your sneak attack will actually be higher. And it’s rare that you need to make a plant decay.
• Charm monster (2/5) – I find this tough to recommend. You’re not necessarily gaining an ally for combat, even then, it’ll only hang around for an hour before knowing you magically influenced it. It has some niche application, but it’s not useful often enough.
• Confusion (3/5) – This is like an unreliable hypnotic pattern. I prefer hypnotic pattern with it’s larger area of effect and greater reliability, but if you like chaos, this can sometimes cause enemies to attack each other.
• Conjure minor elementals (5/5) – This is very powerful if you know what to do with it. An arcane trickster doesn’t have high enough spell slots for this to be properly abusable, but wizards can do devastating things with this at higher levels (RAW at least). Essentially, you want to keep casting spells with multiple attack rolls to maximise damage from the spell. I think the best you can do here is scorching ray upcast to level 3 for 4 rays (you only get 1 level 4 spell which is taken up by this spell). That means an extra 8d8 damage which on top of the 8d6 damage you were already dealing (and you can manage this 3 times per long rest). That considerably outperforms your sneak attack. On an arcane trickster, this is powerful, but not broken. On other spellcasters, it is broken, and personally, I’ll be restricting this spell in my games and suspect many DMs may do the same so maybe chat to your DM about how they want to handle this combination if it’s something you’re intending.
• Control water (2/5) – You can do some fun, creative stuff with this spell, but your opportunities to do so are pretty rare so ends up too situational.
• Dimension door (3/5) – Good for getting out of dungeons quickly or getting the jump on far away enemies. You may need to be a little creative, but as long as you can see, have seen or can precisely determine distance of the location, you can get there safely. Misty step is usually a sufficient teleport and can be cast as a bonus action, even if this has some interesting, extra utility.
• Divination (3/5) – Can be a very useful information gathering spell and isn’t particularly situational. But it’s mileage depends on the generosity of your DM.
• Evard’s black tentacles (4/5) – Very useful in confined spaces and restrained is a powerful condition, plus enemies will take some damage too.
• Fabricate (2/5) – While it’s possible for this to be very useful, it’s very situational in nature and often won’t be particularly useful.
• Fire shield (2/5) – A poor option for a rogue I think, who should generally be trying to avoid getting attacked. I doubt this is very conducive to the hide action either.
• Greater invisibility (5/5) – No need to use your bonus action for hiding now. Just land sneak attacks with advantage and magical ambushes while staying relatively safe.
• Hallucinatory terrain (1/5) – This feels like it could be loads of fun, but I find that working out the practical use cases for this really challenging. Maybe I’m just not creative enough, but you’ve not got enough prepared spells to waste on such a rarely useful spells.
• Ice storm (2/5) – The damage here isn’t particularly high and difficult terrain for a single turn isn’t that great either.
• Leomund’s secret chest (1/5) – This is an expensive spell to keep something safe. Presumably you’re tough enough to protect your own things quite capably be level 19.
• Locate creature (2/5) – Situationally useful if you need to track someone down, but unlikely to happen often enough to really justify.
• Mordenkainen’s faithful hound (2/5) – Kind of like a better alarm with a bite. If you’re worried about invisible creatures or intruders during rests, it’s not bad, but this is your highest spell slot, it’s rarely actually going to attack, and you can deal with invisibility better with something like see invisibility at level 2 so this is hard to recommend.
• Mordenkainen’s private sanctum (2/5) – This can be useful, but it’s too situational to regularly actually help, especially for your highest spell slot.
• Otiluke’s resilient sphere (5/5) – Great way to nullify an enemy. The practical effects are the same as banishment but with a dexterity saving throw instead of a charisma saving throw. More creatures are better at dexterity than charisma so I’d favour banishment, but you could also use this as a protective shield in desperate situations. Or roll your enemy somewhere nasty before the time runs out.
• Phantasmal killer (3/5) – Continuous damage means it takes about 2 turns to hit the levels your sneak attack will be at in damage, plus you make the target quite a bit less effective. That does rely on at least 2 failed saving throws though, and they’ll only have disadvantage from magical ambush on one of them.
• Polymorph (5/5) – Effectively nullify an enemy, enhance an ally or gain some kind of utility benefit like flight. This is a really versatile spell!
• Spellfire storm (3/5) HoF – Lower damage than fireball but it can prevent spells when cast in it’s area and does stick around. With teamwork, you could make some big damage happen here, but it’s tricky to have enemies in the area long enough to make it do more damage than a fireball.
• Stone shape (3/5) – This is quite situational, but also, potentially quite useful. Bypass natural walls in a dungeon by simply shaping the stone and passing through them. Of course, you could just watch your DM have many 6ft thick walls in their dungeon, but that would be cruel to ingenuity.
• Stoneskin (2/5) – Ordinarily a good range of damage resistances, but by 19th level (when you can access this), many creatures you fight will be using different or more varied damage types making this less effective.
• Summon aberration (3/5) – It’s pretty decent, but with upcasting at higher levels, I’d say summon fey is better.
• Summon construct (3/5) – Decent enough summon. I prefer the metal construct, but do think summon fey is a little better when cast at this level.
• Summon elemental (3/5) – Slightly better damage, damage types and hp than most summons, but still stacks up closely in quality. The best summon for adaptable damage types.
• Vitrolic sphere (4/5) – On a failed save, this is a little better than a level 4 fireball, but on a passed save, is a little worse. I’d be tempted to stick to fireball at level 3 as you can cast that at both levels (important as you only get 1 level 4 spell slot).
• Wall of fire (4/5) – Can be a useful way to control the battlefield, separating, slowing and/or damaging your enemies.

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Do you have any favourite spells for an arcane trickster? Or think I’ve been harsh on a great spell. Let me know in the comments below.

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