The Best Artificer Spells for D&D 5e (2014)

Helping you choose the best spells for your artificer.

Considerations

As with any spellcaster, there are some nuances to being an artificer that are worth keeping in mind when picking your spells.

Slower spell progression

Because artificer spells only go up to level 5, their spell progression is slower than that of full casters. It’s important to be aware that some artificer spells won’t scale as well at higher levels because of this.

Bonus action demands

Because artificers are neither as potent at spellcasting or powerful in combat as full casters and martials, they make heavy use of their bonus action for their artificer features. This evens out their power with other classes, but also makes heavy demands on their bonus action.

Some spells require the use of a bonus action to cast or use on subsequent turns. Just be aware that doing so will mean stopping using some core artificer features. Especially those from your subclass.

Cantrips

• Acid splash (4/5) – One of your highest damage cantrip, if you can catch 2 enemies within 5ft of each other. Fortunately, that’s not too rare. It’s not uncommon for dexterity to be high on monsters, but it remains a good option if you think you can catch a couple of enemies in its effects.
• Booming blade (5/5) – As your weapon attack will deal damage + an ability modifier (unlike cantrips which don’t add your ability modifier), even if you can get an enemy to move, this will remain higher damage than most other cantrips and equal to a weapon attack. The damage then scales nicely and if you can coax an enemy to move, you get bonus damage. You do have to be in melee range and battle smiths and armorers may find their extra attack outperforms this, particularly between levels 5-10 and considering the target won’t always move, may still not be as powerful. Consider some hit and run tactics to get melee enemies to move after you or stand your ground against spellcasters so they either move and take damage or stay in vulnerable, melee range.
• Create bonfire (2/5) – 1d8 damage is decent and with it lasting a minute, you could have an ally grapple an enemy into this space for continuous damage. It’s unlikely to block a route much for an enemy so you’ll have to force the situation if you want to get this continual damage. My big problem with this spell is it’s kind of weak to be demanding your concentration, and getting the most out of it requires a concerted effort.
• Dancing lights (2/5) – Useful for parties without darkvision, but does require a bonus action to move around. Hopefully once you hit combat though, they shouldn’t need to be moved around. If you do need to use this to see in combat, it will occupy your concentration which is a pain.
• Fire bolt (3/5) – Good damage, high range cantrip with the only drawback being it’s a commonly resisted damage type. Still a solid option for a pure damage cantrip.
• Frostbite (3/5) – Good against martial creatures as that disadvantage on an attack roll can really diminish an attack-focused creature (but at the expense of some damage). Just be aware that it’s only weapon attacks affected by this and that constitution is often high, especially among those that favour weapon attacks.
• Green flame blade (5/5) – Like booming blade, this will outperform other cantrips and attacks unless you have extra attack. In which case, those might outperform this between about level 5-10 in particular if you can’t land the extra damage on another creature. I think I like this better than booming blade though as you have more control over making the extra damage happen, even if it means less focused damage against a single creature. They’re both top cantrips though.
• Guidance (4/5) – Essentially a skill buff you can use at most times to help your bard, rogue or other designated skills monkey. Really handy for unpicking locks, spotting traps and the like. You may struggle to always use it for quiet things like stealth or social interactions, but in theory, you can keep casting it every minute to help your rogue spot those traps.
• Light (3/5) – Cast this on a weapon, now you’ve got a torch without having to use a spare hand. Good for those without darkvision and without concentration, a better option than dancing lights.
• Lightning lure (2/5) – A 15ft range isn’t great and pulling towards you from short range is usually less valuable than pushing away. 1d8 is only alright as cantrip damage goes too. If you really want to pull things towards you, thorn whip is better.
• Mage hand (5/5) – There’s a lot you can do with this from grabbing hard to reach things to discreetly opening doors, setting off traps from a distance and more. Really “handy” utility spell.
• Magic stone (3/5) – This will usually average more damage than relatively powerful cantrips like firebolt before level 5. Problem is, it doesn’t scale much with your level and requires a bonus action to setup. That is unless you get an extra attack, in which case it can stay ahead of cantrips damage for at least a while. You can also hand them to someone else for magic damage. A homunculus servant might be a good option.
• Mending (4/5) – A very artificer -ish spell. Ordinarily a very situational spell, it becomes invaluable to artillerists and battle smiths in repairing their turrets and steel defender.
• Message (3/5) – Can be handy when separated, but the distance isn’t huge, even if it can reach between rooms. Still, pretty good when you do decide to split the party a bit.
• Poison spray (2/5) – A high damage cantrip but the range is very short, the damage type is often resisted and artificers wanting to use cantrips at this range will often do better with weapon attacks most of the time (because of things like extra attack for battle smiths and armorers).
• Prestidigitation (3/5) – Can do some handy things if you’re creative and a little cunning.
• Ray of frost (3/5) – Slow down enemies a bit while dealing decent damage. Good for long range combat where you want to slow the advance of the enemy.
• Resistance (1/5) – Like a bad bardic inspiration. Concentration is too high a cost for 1d4 bonus to a single saving throw. And it uses an action.
• Shocking grasp (2/5) – Decent damage and advantage against metal armor wearing enemies which is common enough to be a decent boon. You also prevent them taking reactions which is good for a getaway without incurring opportunity attacks. Problem is, melee artificers will likely be better of making weapon attacks and ranged artificers will rarely need this.
• Spare the dying (2/5) – Cure wounds and similar healing abilities are not hard to come by, especially if you’re an alchemist with healing word. If you want to sort out someone that’s been dropped to 0hp, healing is more effective.
• Sword burst (5/5) – Strong damage if you can catch 2 or more enemies in the area. Has higher damage potential and a larger area than acid splash but you’ll have to be right next to the enemies to deal the damage. Because of this, it works best on melee artificers like battle smiths and armorers.
• Thorn whip (3/5) – Twice the range of lightning lure but slightly less damage. If you want to pull creatures towards you for that versatility, then I’d argue this is more worthwhile. Normally pushing is more helpful than pulling.
• Thunderclap (4/5) – Essentially sword burst with thunder damage and a constitution save. I’d argue sword burst is slightly better as constitution is high more often than dexterity and force damage resistance is even rarer than thunder. But thunderclap remains a strong option for melee artificers.

Level 1 spells

• Absorb elements (5/5) – A great option if you get hit by some big elemental damage (say a fireball for instance). This can be the difference between life or death and can be used as a reaction so doesn’t really eat much into your action economy. The damage is small though and barely worth the effort, you’re really here for the resistance. On that note, I wouldn’t bother upcasting this as it only enhances the damage a little but does nothing to the damage you receive (which is the core purpose of the spell).
• Alarm (3/5) – Can be cast as a ritual so no need to use spells slots, especially as you should usually have considerable preparation time for this. Should mean you’re never surprised by an intruder when resting. Your mileage will depend on how often your DM likes to ambush you and how good your guards are, but this is usually more reliable than guards.
• Catapult (3/5) – An average of 13.5 damage is lower than inflict wounds and guiding bolt (which has additional effects too). It’s also lower than magic missile when you account for some uses missing. However, if you can line up enemies, it can have multiple chances to hit making it decent enough.
• Cure wounds (3/5) – I’d much prefer using healing word (and if you’re an alchemist or can grab it through other means, I’d do just that). The use of an action instead of a bonus action and the relatively small increase in healing just makes that a better spell. However, most artificers don’t have access to healing word as standard and having a backup healing option remains a good idea to have in your wheelhouse for recovering downed allies.
• 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 your spell slots to use it.
• Disguise self (3/5) – Good for stealth and subterfuge if you need to impersonate a guard or appear somehow different. You’re likely not great at talking though so try not to get caught into being questioned (or let another party member do the talking).
• Expeditious retreat (2/5) – Dashing as a bonus action isn’t bad and melee artificers in particular may appreciate the extra speed to chase down their enemies. You’ve got 2 problems though; artificers already have a lot of much better uses for their bonus action (like commanding steel defenders and gun turrets) and it requires your concentration for a relatively weak spell.
• Faerie fire (5/5) – Great way to tackle invisibility and get advantage on attacks against a bunch of enemies. Pretty strong 1st level spell.
• False life (3/5) – Decent enough number of temporary hit points and if you’ve got nothing better to do with your 1st level spells, you could pump this out on a few allies too ahead of a big fight.
• Feather fall (3/5) – Technically very situational, but if someone takes a big fall, you probably really want this available. Not a bad idea for someone to have this in the party.
• Grease (2/5) – Knocking prone is decent for slowing enemies down or getting advantage on attack rolls, but faerie fire will do the latter much better. If this occurs on the enemy’s turn, the enemy will likely just stand back up but will at least be slowed down. Other than on the first turn, it’s hard to force enemies through the area unless you’re dealing with a cramped space.
• Identify (1/5) – Invest in arcana, research in a magical library or get the item identified by a friendly spellcaster. You’ve not got loads of spells known to be using on spells like this.
• Jump (2/5) – Occasionally useful for getting high places or across long gaps but this functionality is quickly usurped by things like the ability to climb or fly (which some races get at level 1 as standard). Not useless, but it is quite a limited exploration spell.
• Longstrider (3/5) – Decent extra distance and no concentration required. Good for melee artificers and helping martial allies out. You could even cast this on multiple members of the party at the same time.
• Purify food and drink (1/5) – Situations where you might need this rarely come up. Far too situational.
• Sanctuary (4/5) – Good way to protect your allies but only really effective if they can do things that won’t target enemies. Buffing spellcasters could be a good target for this. It also doesn’t require concentration which helps.
• Snare (3/5) – If you can prepare ahead of an enemy turning up, this can be a good way to restrain them. Use a decoy to coax them towards the trap or lay multiple snares in an enclosed area. The snare itself is difficult to escape. Restrained is problematic, and disadvantage to get yourself out of forcing an intelligence check from someone else will mean you can likely keep enemies trapped for a while in this.
• Tasha’s caustic brew (5/5) – An average of 5 damage per turn and potential for multiple enemies hit. It only takes 3 enemies hit to out damage something like catapult in a single turn. Add to this the fact that an enemy will either continue to take damage or use an action to remove the acid and the effects are considerably more powerful than other level 1 damage dealing spells.

Level 2 spells

• Aid (4/5) – Not only can you spread an extra 15 hit points around your party for a fairly long duration, but these are not temporary hit points so are stackable with temporary hit points from other sources like false life, and there’s no concentration required.
• Air bubble (2/5) – Handy for exploring wildspace or underwater, but beyond this, very situational. If you just want to breathe underwater, I’d go with alter self which is much more flexible.
• Alter self (4/5) – Really flexible bunch of alterations. Essentially a better disguise self, the ability to handle being underwater and some improved unarmed strikes, all rolled up into one. The enhanced unarmed strikes probably won’t be your attack of choice, especially with infusions available, but the other options are enough to be useful on a regular enough basis.
• Arcane lock (3/5) – Lock enemies in or out of a location. Works nicely for closing off an escape in a dungeon or making a safe space to rest in.
• Blur (4/5) – Disadvantage on attack rolls against you is really useful for a melee artificer. Great for bringing up your durability a bit.
• Continual flame (1/5) – There are other ways to create light without using a 2nd level spell slot. The fact that it lasts forever changes little as cantrips can easily be recast.
• Darkvision (3/5) – Good for tackling a lack of darkvision which you’ll often need for dungeon crawling. Plus there’s no concentration required.
• Enhance ability (4/5) – Improving ability checks is good but the concentration required and the fact that ability checks don’t often occur during combat means you’ll often want to use this outside of combat. Eagle’s splendor could be a good way to tackle social encounters. If you want temporary hit points, I’d definitely favour aid for that though.
• Enlarge/reduce (3/5) – A decent buff or debuff with extra damage and improved strength checks and saving throws without the opposite occurring as a debuff. Can be great for strength-based martials and grapplers, especially those with multiple attacks. I prefer it as a buff as it’s certain to succeed. You could also make a small ally tiny for some sneaking around too. The damage doesn’t scale particularly well, although fighters with their extra attacks will get decent scaling from this for instance.
• Heat metal (3/5) – Can be quite problematic for weapon and armor wielding enemies. 2d8 damage per turn is decent and the consequences of dropping or removing armor/weapons can be useful in combat. The only problem is your bonus action is likely quite heavily used already so there will be a conflict there. Many creatures you encounter may also be completely impervious to this spell.
• Invisibility (5/5) – Excellent stealth spell and will give you advantage on your first attack of combat (and probably surprised). Great for escaping a nasty situation too.
• Kinetic jaunt (4/5) – If you just plan on making attacks and non-concentration spells, this is a great way of getting hit and run tactics going. This happens to be a pretty good strategy for melee artificers. Plus you’ll move quicker.
• Lesser restoration (4/5) – You won’t always need this, but when you do, it can be indispensable. Ending these types of conditions is usually very important and worth the action it takes to end it.
• Levitate (4/5) – Both a utility spell for reaching difficult to reach places and an option for nullifying creatures without ranged attacks by suspending them in the air.
• Magic mouth (1/5) – Far too situational to be of much use. The use cases for this are just too rare.
• Magic weapon (2/5) – Generally a decent spell, but it feels a bit redundant with infusions that can do the same thing and it won’t stack with your infusions either, but will require your concentration. I guess you could use this to enhance someone else’s weapon.
• Protection from poison (2/5) – Great against poisonous creatures, but too situational to be commonly used. I’d stick with lesser restoration as it will aid you with multiple conditions (including poisoned), even if it doesn’t give long term protection.
• Pyrotechnics (1/5) – The need to use this on an existing flame make this really hard to manufacture in convenient places. Blindness/deafness and or darkness are better options for these kinds of effects, though artificers don’t get these as standard.
• Rope trick (3/5) – Essentially an escape route. Use it in desperate moments when you need to escape an enemy and gather your wits with a short rest. You could use it in clever ways too, like causing an enemy to chase you, using rope trick to climb up the rope and escape, then climb out and head back the way you came.
• See invisibility (4/5) – Strong and fairly low level way of tackling invisibility.
• Skywrite (1/5) – Very situational. Unlikely to be used very much.
• Spider climb (3/5) – Handy utility spell to get tricky to reach places. Provides decent utility in combat too as you can get out of reach while leaving your arms free. It can quickly become obsolete by flight, especially as level 3 spells like fly kick in.
• Vortex warp (5/5) – Teleporting enemies into the right places can be really handy. Get wizards close to your martials, or teleport your martials into the right places. This is quite a versatile spell and can easily be useful in many situations.
• Web (5/5) – Really good control spell. Restrain multiple creatures simultaneously and make a decent area difficult to traverse.

Level 3 spells

• Ashardalon’s stride (4/5) – Like a faster and damaging version of kinetic jaunt. If you want to run around causing small amounts of damage to enemies before making your own strikes, this is pretty good. Great for hit and run tactics which will suit melee artificers.
• Blink (2/5) – The option to sometimes not be around to be targeted by enemies can be useful. The problem is the randomness of the spell and not knowing if you’ll disappear or not when you end your turn so it’s hard to prepare for this eventuality. It also requires an action for setup too.
• Catnap (2/5) – 10min short rests for 3 creatures. Great if you don’t have an hour to rest, especially for something like a warlock. Often, short rests aren’t too hard to come by though.
• Create food and water (1/5) – Not many tables play rations all that much, and for those that do, simply being prepared feels like a better option than expending a 3rd level spell slot! As impressive as this would be in real life, I’d struggle to recommend this as a 1st level spell, let alone a 3rd level spell.
• Dispel magic (5/5) – Really useful for ending nasty spell effects.
• Elemental weapon (2/5) – Like with magic weapon, this spells clashes with your infusions. You could use this on someone else’s weapon, but not an already infused one.
• Flame arrows (3/5) – Cast ahead of combat and enhance some projectile weapons attacks. Could work nicely on an artillerist. To make this worth a 3rd level spell slot, you need this to work across multiple combats or be getting multiple ranged attacks per turn. Not always easy to pull off in an hour. The best comparison is with hunter’s mark or hex. This is slightly more damage per hit and will work against anyone and last until future combats (potentially), but hex and Hunter’s mark are both level 1 spells and will work with melee attacks too. I’d usually prefer hex or hunter’s mark if you can get them (which you can through the fey-touched feat). This is still decent though with 12d6 potential, extra damage. Plus, it will combine with your infusions.
• Fly (4/5) – Flight is powerful, granting utility outside of combat and safety in combat. For an artificer though, this depends on whether you want to use up a prepared spell on fly or an infusion on winged boots. Winged boots will do the job better, but will take up one of your infusions.
• Glyph of warding (2/5) – Hard to prepare ahead of time and know what might trigger this making it easy to waste or not use. You might also have to cast another spell to maximise the effectiveness of this spell. The explosive runes are worse than a fireball for average damage for instance. I’d say this is a tad too situational.
• Haste (5/5) – Really strong buff that can considerably increase your damage output, speed and resilience (or someone else’s). Particularly strong on a martial character.
• Intellect fortress (4/5)– Psychic damage isn’t hugely common, but intelligence wisdom and charisma saving throws are. This will go a long way to protecting you against nasty conditions, especially from enemy spellcasters.
• 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 but that’s all.
• Revivify (4/5) – This is a weird one as in most situations you should avoid having allies dying anyway by using something like cure wounds when they start taking death saving throws. But that’s not always possible so if you do ever need to revive someone, you’ll really hope you have this spell available.
• Tiny servant (2/5) – Really a utility spell rather than something you’d use in combat. In this sense, it can have a different function to something like a homunculus servant as it’s very small and discrete and looks like a mundane object. Good for scouting and getting things out of reach of the party. I’d actually say a familiar is better than this in everyway despite being a 1st level spell. You don’t have find familiar as standard though, but you can grab it with the ritual caster feat. I’m not sure a 3rd level spell that’s worse than a 1st level spell is really justified; as useful as this could be at times.
• Water breathing (2/5) – Quite situational, but potentially very useful in an aquatic campaign. Most campaigns won’t make use of this much though. If you just want this for yourself, alter self will get you underwater breathing and a swim speed (plus some other options). Normally I’d say that’s a better option for the odd underwater segment.
• Water walk (1/5) – Too situational, especially when effects like flight will often work better which you could just grab instead.

Level 4 spells

• Arcane eye (4/5) – Really good information gathering spell for investigating hideouts, dungeons and other places you’re not supposed to be in.
• Elemental bane (3/5) – A large and coordinated party could deal a lot of damage with this spell, but it definitely takes effort. You could combine it with Tasha’s caustic brew to ensure bonus damage on the enemy’s turn too. Also a great way to overcome damage resistances.
• Fabricate (1/5) – Frustratingly situational as you’ll need both the raw materials in range and the need for something mundane you can build. There are also limitations on creating more intricate things.
• Freedom of movement (3/5) – Lots of things can restrict movement and you can use this to tackle them. This includes handling underwater movement. Alternatively, you could use your infusions to create a ring of free movement.
• Leomund’s secret chest (1/5) – Needing to keep something this safe is rarely necessary. A waste of a spell known in most cases.
• Mordenkainen’s faithful hound (2/5) – Like a harmful alarm spell. Problem is getting the hound in range to bite people as it doesn’t move. Quite a high spell slot for an alarm that often won’t do much damage. At least it can see invisible creatures, but it won’t remove their invisibility either.
• Mordenkainen’s private sanctum (1/5) – A secret space to discuss plans, but it won’t definitely keep things out (especially if they use mundane means like walking through the spell’s edge). It’s rare you need to be secretive enough to need to use this.
• Otiluke’s resilient sphere (5/5) – Nullify an enemy by trapping them in a sphere or protect yourself from everything. Its effects are both powerful and versatile.
• Stone shape (4/5) – This is technically a bit 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. You could also do things like block doors and windows or reshape statues and so on.
• Stoneskin (3/5) – Good resistances. Unfortunately, by the level you get this, many creatures are getting magical attacks.
• Summon construct (3/5) – Solid summon spell with decent damage and some nice extra effects. Metal is probably your most reliable form of extra damage, even if you are reliant on enemies attacking the construct. This is somewhat worse on an artificer as other spellcasters can cast their summons at higher levels at this point, but still a decent meat shield for the party.

Level 5 spells

• Animate objects (4/5) – You can average quite a lot of damage with up to 10 tiny, animated objects and a loads of accumulative hit points (200). 18AC is pretty good too. Going for larger objects tends to have diminishing effects on damage and total hit points as well as AC. If it was me, I’d just got for 10 tiny objects. Carry a load of cutlery with you specifically for making sure you can animate plenty of tiny objects. You should be able to make a single command as a bonus action that will last a combat (like attack my enemies) so this shouldn’t interfere with your other artificer bonus actions too heavily. This spell will usually outperform these though.
• Bigby’s hand (3/5) – Really flexible effects from pure damage to grappling, pushing and protecting. It’s also quite effective at doing these things too. Your main problem is balancing the already heavy burden on your bonus action, otherwise this spell would score much higher.
• Create spelljamming helm (2/5) – Only really for spelljamming adventures. Any other time, it’s pointless.
• Creation (3/5) – Somewhat situational, but also quite flexible. Block a doorway, create a trap or maybe replicate a key or a precious stone to sell… There’s a lot of uses, even if there are some limitations on things like duration. Also be aware it takes a minute to cast so needs some preparation time.
• Greater restoration (4/5) – You likely won’t need this a lot, but when you do, you’ll really appreciate having this spell available.
• Skill empowerment (2/5) – Skill expertise is great, but at the cost of a 5th level spell to get this temporarily is a steep price, even if it is adaptive. You’re better off just having people good at various skills then maybe using enhance ability or guidance to supplement this if you need.
• Transmute rock (3/5) – Rock and mud are common enough that this can often be useful, even if it can be situational. Mud is easier to escape as you can use an action to get out but will slow enemies down still (and occupy an action). Rock is better, but finding mud to transform is rarer. In theory you could coordinate with another spellcaster to transform the mud you’ve created into rock, but this requires 2 5th level spells and some coordination which is challenging.
• Wall of stone (4/5) – Powerful way to control the battlefield and contain some enemies for a little bit. The panels are destructible though so it may not contain creatures for long, but 1 or 2 turns with less creatures to deal with is still strong.

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Do you have any favourite artificer spells? Let me know about them in the comments below.

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