Ritual Spells In D&D 2024

Spells without spell slots

Grab your spell book and candles because today we’re delving into rituals.

D&D 2024 brings with it some changes to how rituals work and who can use them. Below, I’m going to dig into which spells you can cast as rituals, who can do this and some tactics you can use to get the most out of your ritual spells.

How do rituals work in D&D 2024?

Rituals in D&D 2024 are super straightforward. If a spell has the ritual tag, it can be cast as a ritual. When you do this, the spell takes 10mins longer than normal to cast, but doesn’t consume a spell slot.

You must have the spell prepared to cast it (as usual) but if you’re a wizard, you could just have the spell in your spell book.

This makes rituals great for when you’ve got a lot of time, but are obviously dreadful in combat which typically takes much less than 10 minutes (and what kind of evil DM would impose 10 minute encounters on their players anyway!)

How have rituals changed?

The big thing is that there are no longer any class restrictions for ritual spellcasting. In D&D 2014, rituals could only be cast by 5 classes; artificers, bards, clerics, druids and wizards.

This meant that paladins, rangers, sorcerers and warlocks couldn’t cast spells as rituals; nor could arcane tricksters and eldritch knights.

This is no longer the case and in fact, any class with a spell, no matter how they gained the spell (like through a species traits) can cast that spell as a ritual. This would be the case for something like a Forest Gnome with speak with animals.

What spells can you cast as rituals?

There are 31 spells in the D&D 2024 Player’s Handbook that can be cast as rituals (which I’ve listed out below).

D&D 2014 has the exact same spells as rituals though Xanathar’s Guide and Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount add a single ritual spell each in the form of skywrite and wristpocket.

Spell	Level	Casting time	Classes	Effects
Alarm	1	1 minute	Ranger, wizard	Trigger an alarm when a creature enters a warded area.
Animal messenger	2	Action	Bard, druid, ranger	Have a tiny beast deliver a message for you.
Augury	2	1 minute	Cleric, druid, wizard	Receive limited guidance on the effects of a plan.
Beast sense	2	Action	Druid, ranger	You can perceive through a beast’s senses.
Commune	5	1 minute	Cleric	Ask a deity 3 yes or no questions.
Commune with nature	5	1 minute	Druid, ranger	Learn facts about the surrounding area.
Comprehend languages	1	Action	Bard, sorcerer, warlock, wizard	You can understand any language.
Contact other plane	5	1 minute	Warlock, wizard	Ask a powerful, otherworldly entity 5 questions and receive single word answers.
Detect magic	1	Action	Bard, cleric, druid, paladin, ranger, sorcerer, warlock, wizard	Detect the presence of magic.
Detect poison and disease	1	Action	Cleric, druid, paladin, ranger	Detect the presence and type of poisons, venomous creatures and contagions.
Divination	4	Action	Cleric, druid, wizard	Ask a deity about something happening in the next 7 days.
Drawmij’s instant summons	6	1 minute	Wizard	Summon an inscribed object into your hand.
Feign death	3	Action	Bard, cleric, druid, wizard	Make a creature seem dead.
Find familiar	1	1 hour	Wizard	Summon a familiar.
Forbiddance	6	10 minutes	Cleric	Ward a large area against magical travel and certain types of creatures
Gentle repose	2	Action	Cleric, paladin, wizard	Prevent a creature becoming undead and lengthen the time until a creature can be raised from the dead.
Identify	1	1 minute	Bard, wizard	Learn the properties of a magical item or spells affecting a creature.
Illusory script	1	1 minute	Bard, warlock, wizard	Make writing appear like gibberish to all but those you want to read it.
Leomund’s tiny hut	3	1 minute	Bard, wizard	Create a magical barrier that those outside can’t pass through.
Locate animals and plants	2	Action	Bard, druid, ranger	Learn the location of an animal or plant.
Magic mouth	2	1 minute	Bard, wizard	Have a short message spoken when a trigger occurs.
Meld into stone	3	Action	Cleric, druid, ranger	Meld into stone.
Phantom steed	3	1 minute	Wizard	Summon a spectral steed that you can ride.
Purify food and drink	1	Action	Cleric, druid, paladin	Remove poison and rot from food and drink.
Rary’s telepathic bond	5	Action	Bard, wizard	Forge a telepathic bond with up to 8 creatures.
Silence	2	Action	Bard, cleric, ranger	Create a sphere of silence.
Speak with animals	1	Action	Bard, druid, ranger, warlock	Gain the ability to communicate with animals.
Tenser’s floating disc	1	Action	Wizard	Create an invisible disc of force that can follow you around.
Unseen servant	1	Action	Bard, warlock, wizard	Create an invisible servant to perform simple tasks for you.
Water breathing	3	Action	Druid, ranger, sorcerer, wizard	Enable up to 10 creatures to breathe underwater.
Water walking	3	Action	Cleric, druid, ranger, sorcerer	Enable up to 10 creatures to walk on water.

What are the best ritual spells?

The challenge with a lot of ritual spells is how often they are going to be useful.

If you’re a wizard and you happen upon a scroll you can scribe into your spell book, the extra spells can be useful if a tricky situation comes up. But if you’re another kind of spellcaster, you don’t want your prepared spells lumbered with the likes of locate animals and plants, just in case you need to hunt down a rare plant for a potion.

Below I’ve popped down what I consider to be the best ritual spells so you know which ones are worth your time:

Information gathering spells like augury, commune, contact other plane and divination: All of these spells work great as rituals as you never need them in combat, but they can give you hints about your future plans and needs.

Detect magic: This is important when you’re busy investigating and need to know whether there might be a magical source to something.

Silence: Great for dealing with enemy spellcasters. You may find you use this more in the heat of battle than as a ritual, but if you’ve got preparation time, it can be useful too.

Speak with animals: A great way to gather information or even get another creature to become friendly with you.

Beast sense: When scouting, you may want to send an animal to do the scouting for you (like of you have a familiar or a primal companion like the beast master). To make this work better, use beast sense to see and hear what the creature senses.

Find familiar: Familiars are really useful companions, especially as the previously mentioned scouts. You should grab one of these if you can! And with the likes of magic initiate or ritual caster, anyone can.

Unseen servant: Kind of like mage hand, but with the capabilities of a very simple-minded, but fully-grown Human. Great for if you’re trapped somewhere or need to get something without being seen.

Leomund’s tiny hut: Good way to stay safe while resting in a dangerous place.

Phantom steed: Need a steed? Why not grab a phantom steed. They run faster than normal horses and could be a great option for moving quickly around the battlefield.

Meld into stone: Good for surprise attacks, and there’s enough stone around to make this useful on a fairly regular basis.

Rary’s telepathic bond: Great for stealth segments if you need to be able to communicate silently with allies.

Tactics for the ritual caster feat

At level 4, you can take a general feat called ritual caster. This will grant you a number of new prepared spells equal to you proficiency bonus as long as those spells are level 1 spells with the ritual tag. As your proficiency bonus increases, so do the number of ritual spells you gain from this feat.

Extra spells are always great, even if those spells are a little more limited than other options you might want to choose. You also get to cast a ritual spell with its normal casting time once per day without expending a spell slot (basically getting a free, quick casting of a ritual spell per day).

If you want to take this feat, you’ll first want to pick some level 1 ritual spells. Your options include:

Alarm
Comprehend languages
Detect magic
Detect poison and disease
Find familiar
Identify
Illusory script
Purify food and drink
Speak with animals
Tenser’s floating disc
Unseen servant

There are no class restrictions here so this not only gives you an opportunity to grab spells from another spell list, it also means non-spellcasters can get in on the fun too.

Detect magic is crucial for any party and find familiar is great if you need a scout or something useful to do simple tasks for you. Unseen servant works great for performing some simple tasks safely and sneakily while speak with animals is great for exploration and information gathering.

Most of the other spells have much more limited application so other choices will more depend on what you think you may get use from.

The other interesting thing here is being able to cast a spell for free at its usual casting time. This may not feel too exciting for natural spellcasters who could just use a spell slot for this, but it essentially means one free spell in combat, and means non-spellcasters can also use one of these spells in combat.

There aren’t many ritual spells with a casting time of an action that you’ll want to bother with in the heat of combat (or with urgency) unfortunately. Silence is likely one of the few you’d regularly want to use. Sadly it’s a level 2 spell, so non-casters won’t gain access to this.

It’s an OK feat if you’re really keen to grab a familiar and a couple of other useful spells like detect magic, but I’d be more inclined to go for fey-touched or shadow-touched if you want some spells from a feat. While they give you less spells, they’re much more useful (misty step and invisibility are both top-tier spells and the level 1 spells come without the restrictions of being ritual spells).

Do you have any tips or creative uses for using ritual spells? Share them in the comments below.