Paladin Spell Guide For D&D 2024 (5.5e)

Identifying all the best paladin spells available.

Paladins are half-casters, supplementing powerful fists with divinely granted magical abilities. Best known for their smites, there’s actually a lot more to paladins and their spellcasting.

While their spell list only takes them up to level 5 spells and they’ve no cantrips to speak of (unless you take the blessed warrior fighting style), there’s still a lot to consider. For that reason, I’ve rated every spell on the 2024 paladin’s spell list and given advice on how best to use these spells. Hopefully, this will help you narrow down your spell choices.

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Level 1 spells

paladin — Paladin casting a smite spells: Wizards of the Coast

Bless (4/5) – 1d4 extra for all attack rolls and saving throws for a whole combat for 3 creatures is enough to turn a few failures into successes. Focus it on high attack allies, especially melee combatants (spellcasters may not always be making attack rolls or be in as much danger).
Command (3/5) – Decent for high charisma paladins, you essentially nullify an enemy for a turn. You also gain some situational benefit too like dropping the enemy prone or moving it where you want it.
Compelled duel (3/5) – This can be an effective tool, but it can suffer from being a bit situational. It’s main use is directing attacks from an enemy away from weaker allies and towards yourself and at its best, can be used in a way that stops the enemy ever reaching you and causing disadvantage on attack rolls against anyone else. For example, if you wield a javelin, you can cause the slow weapon mastery property on an opponent, restricting many enemies to just 20ft of movement allowing you to maintain a safe distance and nullifying the opponent. There’s no repeat saves for this effect either, but can be challenging to manufacture the perfect circumstances for this too.
Cure wounds (2/5) – The problem with picking this is lay on hands is a bonus action while this requires an action, but lay on hands can also quickly heal more than cure wounds (average of 9hp where lay on hands has a pool of 5x your paladin level in hit points). I’d just stick with lay on hands.
Detect evil and good (1/5) – It’s a little too situational (only detects certain creature types) and the range isn’t great. It also doesn’t last long for a spell that might be better used for exploration (10 minutes of in game time will fly by like this) and you can’t cast it as a ritual. Essentially, there are far better spells to be using your spell slots on.
Detect magic (4/5) – Someone needs this in the party and as it can be cast as a ritual so you don’t need to eat into precious spell slots.
Detect poison and disease (1/5) – Really situational spell. I’m yet to come across a situation where this would have been useful. At least you can cast it as a ritual I suppose.
Divine favour (5/5) – An average of an extra 2.5 damage per hit. If you’ve gone for a dual wielder, then you could be pulling off an extra 10 damage per turn for a combat. This is at the cost of a bonus action, a level 1 spell and doesn’t require concentration. Not bad with the right build. And you could combine it with hex or hunter’s mark if you take fey-touched too (or take the oath of vengeance). This is a much more economical use of a spell slot than divine smite which averages 9 damage per use!
Divine smite (4/5) – If divine favour is great for accumulating damage over the course of a combat, divine smite is better for more explosive damage, especially when you have less attacks.
Heroism (2/5) – This one’s OK, but a lot of enemies won’t cause the frightened condition. This becomes even more redundant at level 10 when your aura of protection kicks in and makes allies immune to the frightened condition anyway. Continuous temporary hit points is decent though, especially at low levels, but too small at higher levels.
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.
Purify food and drink (1/5) – Really situational! Will barely ever get used, and even then, you could just not eat the food! At least you can cast it as a ritual I guess.
Searing smite (3/5) – This will need to last at least 3 turns on average to do more damage than divine smite. Even then, only barely. It could be useful on an enemy that might last a long time and has a low constitution, but a good saving throw will also end the effects early. It’s not bad, it’s just that divine smite is better.
Shield of faith (4/5) – +2 AC for a combat is strong, but be aware that it requires concentration. Still, really useful for a tank.
Thunderous smite (4/5) – You’re essentially swapping an average of 2 damage from divine smite for the chance to knock an enemy prone and push them 10ft. I’d say the trade off can often be worthwhile, especially if your allies or subsequent attacks can benefit from advantage from a prone target.
Wrathful smite (4/5) – With this one, you’ll average 5.5 less damage than divine smite, but with the chance of making your target frightened of you. It’s a solid trade off I think, especially if you have a high charisma.

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. I think this works better for a cleric though, who will get this sooner and can upcast it higher.
Find steed (4/5) – Mounted combat can be powerful (especially with the mounted combatant feat) but can be a little difficult to arrange. Fortunately, paladins get find steed as a prepared spell and a free casting of it at level 5. You also get some nifty bonus actions it can use like a mega misty step, healing or striking fear into enemies.
Gentle repose (1/5) – The needs for this are quite situational. If you want to revive someone, just use 1hp from lay on hands (and keep these saved for emergencies). This means the main reason for this is if you want someone dead, but able to be raised later or need to harvest someone’s organs for donation 10 days later. Yes, I’ve never actually needed to use something like this before and you probably won’t either.
Lesser restoration (4/5) – You won’t always need this, but when you do, it can be really useful. Ending these types of conditions is usually very important and it only requires a bonus action so you can keep attacking when you use this too.
Locate object (2/5) – It’s possible for this to be very useful in investigations, but it can easily go unused for a long time too. Could make a great tracking beacon if you want to do some subterfuge. It’s not bad, just situational so don’t be afraid to take this if you feel you can engineer situations where this is going to be useful.
Magic weapon (3/5) – The extra damage isn’t amazing (though best when getting off a lot of attacks, like when dual wielding) but bypassing resistances can be useful. For a bonus action, you can use this in the heat of battle when you realise you’re having a resistance issue or you can cast ahead of combat as it lasts an hour.
Prayer of healing (2/5) – Depending on how your DM plays and whether your party is comprised of characters like warlocks that need regular short rests, a 10 minute short rest can make a difference. I prefer this spell on a cleric though. They have the prepared spells and spell slots to expend on this and, at level 10, can use divine intervention to invoke the effects of a short rest mid-combat. You’re a paladin though, so you can’t do this (the gods don’t care enough about you)!
Protection from poison (1/5) – With lay on hands able to cure from the poisoned condition by expending 5hp of uses, this feels quite redundant. It’s not that good anyway, but even worse on a paladin.
Shining smite (4/5) – It’s really hard to anticipate what creatures will be able to turn invisible, so this aspect of things likely won’t benefit you often (and hitting an invisible creature is often challenging). However, at the cost of a higher spell slot and an average of 2 less damage than divine smite, you get a minute of advantage on attacks against the creature for the whole party which is pretty strong. There’s no saving throw against this either. I like the idea of applying this early in combat against a really tough creature.
Warding bond (2/5) – This one’s a little tricky. Sharing the pain can be beneficial. It means your ally doesn’t get downed too easily because they’re consistently targeted. The reduction in chances of being damaged though, aren’t that high. +1 to AC and saving throws means you’ll not be hit much less.
Zone of truth (2/5) – Mainly for interrogations, which is very much a paladin specialty. Remember though, that this isn’t zone of learn everything someone knows, and an enemy can be clever, or quiet and not really give you any information at all, potentially making this useless.

Level 3 spells

book of many things — Paladin casting a spell: Wizards of the Coast

Aura of vitality (3/5) – Continuous healing each turn can be worthwhile for longer combats. It’ll preserve your bonus action for other things than lay on hands.
Blinding smite (4/5) – Better damage than divine smite and you apply the blinded condition. Note that blinded is caused automatically and saving throws only happen at the end of the creatures turns so this will work even against creatures with legendary resistance. Not bad for nullifying the BBEG for a bit (or each turn depending on how many spell slots you’ve got).
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.
Crusader’s mantle (4/5) – Divine favor for you and your allies. With the right party composition, you can do a lot of damage with this. Monks, fighters and dual wielders in particular can make this quite worthwhile. Imagine a 4 round combat with each hit averaging an extra 2.5 damage. If you dual wield for 4 attacks, you have a monk making 5 attacks and a fighter dual wielding for 5 attacks. That’s 14 attacks. If 2/3 of these hit, that’s 9 hits for 22.5 extra damage per turn. That’s 90 extra damage across 4 rounds. True, some of those circumstances rely on ideal situations, but with the right party, this can be excellent.
Daylight (2/5) – While this has its uses for tackling things like the darkness spell and creatures that hate sunlight, it’s far too situational to recommend.
Dispel magic (4/5) – Really useful for ending nasty spell effects. Just be aware though that you probably want this in your party earlier, so hopefully your full spellcaster already has this.
Elemental weapon (2/5) – If you want extra damage, use divine favor, if you want to bypass resistances, you can use magic weapon. While this does do both and a little bit more, I’m not sure it does enough more to justify spending a 3rd level spell on it.
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.
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.
Revivify (3/5) – This is a weird one as in most situations you should avoid having allies dying anyway by using lay on hands when they start taking death saving throws. But if you do ever need it, you’ll really hope you have it. It’s better for a cleric as they’ll get it sooner, but if no one else can grab it, then you’re the backup healer so it may have to be you.

Level 4 spells

Aura of life (2/5) – While good in certain circumstances (against certain undead), this is far too situational to be broadly useful. Healing downed allies to 1hp is alright, but you might as well go with aura of vitality if you want the healing.
Aura of purity (4/5) – This is much more likely to come into play with many conditions covered and resistance for a very common damage type.
Banishment (5/5) – Take an enemy or 2 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 throws and many creatures have poor charisma.
Death ward (2/5) – Level 4 spells kick in at level 13. This spell essentially does what an Orc can do at level 1 (but a little better). And you have to choose the recipient ahead of time, not knowing if they’ll be reduced to 0hp with a chance they’ll be knocked right back down again when tickled with a feather anyway. It can be a life saver, but can often be redundant so for me, it does too little for too big a spell slot.
Locate creature (2/5) – This one’s difficult to rate as it depends a lot on your DM and the kind of things you can expect to do. If there’s going to be a lot of investigating, this could well be very useful. But you could also end up never using it at all… For me, it’s usually going to be too situational to bother much with.
Staggering smite (3/5) – The stunned condition only lasts a turn, unlike something like blinding smite, but being stunned is more powerful than being blinded, and having a powerful enemy out of action for a turn is very useful. Still, blinding smite is more reliable so I tend to prefer it.

Level 5 spells

Banishing smite (3/5) – This is another tricky one. 5d10 damage is decent and banishing a creature is excellent. The problem you’ve got is you need the creature under 50hp to make the banishment work. At that point, at this level, it might only take another turn to kill them. It’s still great and useful to have an enemy out of action though, and frees up attacks for other creatures. Even so, this spell can easily lose out on its best feature.
Circle of power (4/5) – Pretty strong protective aura. Spell saving throws should be reasonably common at this level and the chance to take no damage from AoE spells can be a life saver too.
Destructive wave (5/5) – Sort of a paladin’s version of fireball. A bit more damage, a bigger radius, and you can avoid allies. You can also knock enemies prone giving allies a chance to escape or attack with advantage while slowing your foes down.
Dispel evil and good (3/5) – Although a bit situational, these creature types are common enough that you should encounter them often enough.
Geas (2/5) – This can be solid, but quite difficult to engineer into something practical. Getting a captured enemy to do your bidding is probably the main use here, which can be hugely useful, or not at all, which is why it only gets a 2.
Greater restoration (4/5) – You likely won’t need this a lot, but when you do, you’ll really appreciate having this spell available.
Raise dead (3/5) – Ideally, you shouldn’t have allies dying (heal them a little with lay on hands once they start taking death saving throws). That’s not always possible though, and when it isn’t, you’ll be glad you have this. Useful for sorting out dead NPCs you didn’t want dead too.
Summon celestial (3/5) – Decent damage, even if it’s not that tough for the level you’ll be fighting at. Always useful to have some extra damage and another target for enemy attacks.