Artificer Spell Guide for D&D 2024

Helping you pick the best spells for your artificer.

Considerations

Before I dive into the actual artificer spells, there are some things about artificers to be aware of when making spell choices.

Impact of subclasses

More than any other class, playing artificers changes considerably depending on the subclass you take. Artillerists make long range specialists, battle smiths and armorers are more adept at going toe to toe with enemies and actually using weapon attacks, alchemists tend to deal a lot of buffs and healing while cartographers teleport around a lot.

This means that the spells that are most useful for you may change depending on your subclass. Thunderclap is a lot more useful for a frontline artificer like a battle smith, than for an artillerist, for example.

The other thing to be aware of is subclass spells. The artificer spell list is kind of weak in my opinion. It’s quite small and focuses mainly on utility. That’s not a major problem, but it leaves you less options in the heat of combat. Subclass spell lists become quite important here, often giving you new and powerful options to use. And it’s worth being aware that some subclass spell lists are better than others.

Spell storing item is hugely important

I mentioned this already, but artificers can now imbue an item with a spell which can be used up to 10 times to cast that spell, and potentially by someone other than yourself. This significantly expands your spell uses and also the impact of your turns, effectively allowing for 2 levelled spells per turn.

The 2024 version of the artificer also lets you use level 3 spells in your spell storing item which is a huge buff! Unfortunately, the vanilla artificer spell list isn’t hugely inspiring when it comes to these options, but this is where the subclass lists come into play. Some have good (and even excellent) options like the armorer, artillerist and battle smith. Others have disappointing options, like the alchemist and cartographer. But be aware that as you choose your spells, you will want to keep an eye on spells you want to be using regularly through your spell storing item.

Changes to the artificer’s spell list

The artificer gains access to 6 new spells in D&D 2024:

• Elementalism (cantrip)
• True strike (cantrip)
• Arcane vigor (lv2)
• Dragon’s breath (lv2)
• Homunculus servant (lv2)
• Circle of power (lv5)

There are some great options in here with true strike becoming one of your best damage dealing cantrips. Dragon’s breath combines really well with homunculus servant to give them an effective weapon.

Homunculus servant is technically a new spell, but it previously came about as one of your infusions. This expends a spell slot, but as you have more spells slots than magic item options, this is a positive adjustment.

There’s just one spell missing, that’s Mordenkainen’s faithful hound. I’d also note that while mending isn’t on the spell list, they do get this as part of one of their features at level 1.

You may also notice that any spells from Xanathar’s and Tasha’s guides that haven’t received a reprint, haven’t been listed in the 2024 spell list, but these remain options for the artificer too (though I’ve only tackled spells below that have been republished for D&D 2024 and will update the list below as that these are reprinted).

Cantrips

• Acid splash (3/5) – You only need to hit 2+ enemies to make this do more damage than any other cantrip. Essentially it’s worse than most cantrips against 1 enemy, but better against multiple enemies. Particularly good option for an alchemist.
• Dancing lights (3/5) – Decent enough way to tackle darkness if characters in the party lack 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 (3/5) – Solid damage and the damage type is a little better than that for poison spray (even if the damage isn’t quite as good). This also works with an alchemist’s alchemical savant.
• Guidance (4/5) – Really good buff for ability checks. Easy to just spam it whenever allies need to use skills.
• 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.
• Mage hand (4/5) – Great utility spell. Grab or manipulate things that are out of reach. It’s also great for setting off traps while you stand at a safe distance.
• 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.
• Poison spray (3/5) – Your highest damage for a ranged spell attack. Just be aware that the damage type is also one of the most highly resisted and a lot of creatures now have poison damage immunity. This is another that works with an alchemist’s alchemical savant.
• Prestidigitation (3/5) – I don’t think I’m as enamoured with this spell as many others, but it can be a useful utility spell if you’re creative enough. I’d prefer minor illusion and/or mage hand, but this can be handy too.
• Ray of frost (3/5) – Good if you want to slow enemies down. You can combine this with the slow weapon mastery property from your allies to reduce movement by 20ft. Good for long range combat. Less so when fighting in close quarters.
• Resistance (1/5) – This is too limiting to be useful. You have to pick a damage type, use your action, use concentration and only reduce the damage by 1d4. And it only works once per turn. The reduction is too small and it’s not worth your concentration.
• Shocking grasp (2/5) – Like chill touch, you probably don’t want to be making melee spell attacks if you can avoid it. This is better though as it prevents attacks of opportunity allowing for a getaway if you don’t have misty step. I’d still prefer other options over this though.
• Spare the dying (2/5) – Healing word and similar healing abilities are not hard to come by. If you want to sort out someone that’s been dropped to 0hp, it’s a much more effective solution. Alchemists and battle smiths both have healing options outside of their spell list too.
• Thorn whip (3/5) – The pull is interesting and you can maybe pull enemies into a position they don’t want to be (perhaps next to your barbarian) but engineering this can be tricky. You might consider it for getting some enemies into your melee range, but those artificers that want to do this (armorers and battle smiths) won’t want to give up their extra attack to do so which sort of limits this a bit.
• Thunderclap (4/5) – Great option for battle smiths and armorers if they get into the middle of a bunch of enemies. It hits more spaces than acid splash, but you have to be next to the enemies for it to work.
• True strike (4/5) – Your best single target cantrip. Artillerists do best here using it with either a musket or pistol for all their standard attacks. Battle smiths and armorers may outgrow this once extra attack kicks in (and perhaps even sooner for the armorer).

Level 1 spells

• Alarm (2/5) – Warn against intrusion while you rest. It’s a ritual and doesn’t require concentration, so you can perform this on multiple locations around the camp. Your mileage of this will depend on how much your DM likes to ambush you though. Guards should help with this in most cases making this a solution to a situational and mostly avoidable problem.
• Cure wounds (3/5) – Decent healing spell but it requires an action. I’d prefer healing word for emergencies, but if you want to lean more into being a proper healer, this is decent enough.
• Detect magic (4/5) – Someone needs this in the party. Makes a good utility option.
• Disguise self (3/5) – If you intend to attempt some impersonations or similar things, this is much easier than gathering the uniforms of guards. I’d prefer it on a charisma-focused caster like a bard or sorcerer, but it’s decent enough if you want to join in with the subterfuge.
• Expeditious retreat (1/5) – You rarely need to move this fast and you don’t want your concentration consumed with this spell.
• Faerie fire (4/5) – A good source of handling invisibility and a spurce of advantage on attacks too. This is a big buff even when not tackling invisibility and it’s a great option when someone is invisible.
• 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.
• 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.
• Identify (1/5) – You can usually work out what a magic item is without using a spell slot.
• Jump (3/5) – An extra 20ft of movement 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) – This feels like a worse version of jump, that also doesn’t let you jump really far. Plus it takes up an action. But it does last longer though, so could be used over multiple encounters.
• Purify food and drink (1/5) – Situations where you might need this rarely come up. Far too situational.
• Sanctuary (2/5) – This would be great if it could be maintained while a creature attacked, cast spells or dealt damage, but it doesn’t. The 2014 version was a little more versatile allowing the spell to be maintained when casting spells that didn’t afflict enemies giving you more options. The best things a character can do with this spell enabled are things like the help action, bardic inspiration, sharing paladin auras or using channel divinity but this will be rarely useful enough to make this worthwhile. Which is a shame because the lack of concentration and only requiring a bonus action made this great in the 2014 rules.

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.
• Alter self (3/5) – Kind of like disguise self with extras. The disguise is a bit less restrictive than disguise self and you can get a swim speed. Unarmed damage is basically pointless for an artificer though.
• Arcane lock (3/5) – Potential for being a good safety measure if you need to escape monsters and lock a door behind you while you recover. Or trap a creature inside. During downtime at your bastion, you could systematically apply this to every door and window in the place for extra safety.
• Arcane vigor (2/5) – This is OK if you need a self-healing option and only taking a bonus action is decent enough, but with relatively small hit dice, the healing from healing word actually isn’t that far behind this, as a level 1 spell. And this consumes hit dice and can only be cast on yourself. But you don’t have access to healing word (unless you’re an alchemist). Still, I’d be tempted to take magic initiate cleric for that and not bother with this if you really want a healing option.
• Blur (4/5) – Strong defensive spell, though it gets less effective as enemies get better at hitting you, with disadvantage causing less of a problem for accurate creatures.
• 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.
• Darkvision (3/5) – The best way to see in the dark if you don’t already have darkvision.
• Dragon’s breath (3/5) – This is kind of like reusable burning hands for a whole combat that you can grant to someone else. You could cast it on someone else with less precious actions (like a homunculus servant if you have one). A fairly efficient use of spell slots.
• Enhance ability (4/5) – Great for tackling high stakes skills checks like those involving stealth or social encounters.
• Enlarge/reduce (3/5) – Decent buff or debuff. Works nicely on grapplers 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 and make them smaller.
• Heat metal (3/5) – Continuous damage and you can impose disadvantage on attack rolls which is big. Cast it on an enemy wearing plate mail and watch it squirm as that stuff can’t just be dropped. It does take a bonus action to maintain and mostly only works on humanoids that actually use metal making it a bit situational.
• Homunculus servant (4/5) – On its own, this is only OK. The stats are nothing to get excited about, but it’s telepathy makes it quite a useful scout, especially with it’s tiny size and flight. However, where it gets interesting is with wands and spell storing item. You can pass these over to your homunculus servant to give you twice the spell effects each turn. Though you may want to check with your DM that this is something he’ll allow.
• Invisibility (5/5) – Excellent stealth spell and will help you for a round of combat too.
• Lesser restoration (4/5) – You won’t always need this, but when you do, it can be really important. Ending these types of conditions is usually very useful and it only requires a bonus action so you can keep attacking when you use this too.
• Levitate (3/5) – Useful for scaling tall buildings and scouting. You can also nullify an enemy to some extent with this, especially if they don’t have ranged options.
• 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 (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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• Spider climb (2/5) – This can be useful sometimes, but I’d probably just go for levitate if I need some height.
• Web (5/5) – Strong control spell. Will slow down multiple enemies and can restrain them too.

Level 3 spells

• Blink (2/5) – This essentially gives you safety for 50% of your turns in combat. Not bad for a fragile class, especially in longer encounters. It does require an action to setup though, so only worthwhile in longer encounters.
• 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) – This is an alright buff if you have the extra attacks to justify it and can cast ahead of combat and the combat will be quite long. Could be a little tricky to contrive at times and the bonus isn’t great for this level but it can be OK.
• Fly (4/5) – Really useful utility spell. Can keep you safe (ish) in combat and helps you access hard to reach locations.
• 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 web 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) – A strong buff that can easily enhance yourself or an ally. An extra action, more speed, better AC and better saving throws all combine nicely.
• 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 (3/5) – Important option to have in the party in case anyone does. Problem for an artificer is by the time you get this, you can probably access better reviving from death. But if you don’t have a cleric, this might be the first opportunity you can get something like this.
• Water breathing (2/5) – It’s not often you need to breathe under water. Situationally useful when those moments do come up.
• Water walk (1/5) – Too situational, especially when effects like flight will often work better which other spellcasters could have at this stage.

Level 4 spells

• Arcane eye (4/5) – Really good investigation spell that can let you spy on a location without setting foot inside.
• 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 helpful.
• Freedom of movement (2/5) – While technically situational, it is possible to contrive useful situations for using this. For example, someone using plant growth to create difficult terrain that only you or an ally can easily move through makes that kind of spell extra useful. You can even cast this ahead of combat if you know that this will be your strategy. The other situations for using this may be situational, but are common enough together that it can just about be worth having, but you can also go without this spell.
• Leomund’s secret chest (1/5) – This feels like quite a high level spell just to keep something safe.
• Mordenkainen’s private sanctum (2/5) – This can be useful, but it’s too situational to regularly actually help unless you know someone might be spying on you.
• 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.
• 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 (3/5) – Solid protection spell, but be aware, this consumes your concentration and as enemies get more magical attacks and less standard weapon damage, this becomes increasingly redundant.
• Summon construct (3/5) – Decent enough summon. I prefer the metal construct. It’s not the best summon spell around, but it is decent and the only one artificers have.

Level 5 spells

• Animate objects (4/5) – This is a tricky one to judge. If you have a high intelligence (20 ideally), you can average 34 damage per turn with a huge and a large animate object (other combinations deal less damage). But that relies on hits and these constructs staying alive long enough to deal damage on subsequent turns. Even without that, they are at least extra targets for enemies to go after. If you can hit with most attacks and have these last for 2-3 turns, the damage output should be worth the spell slot.
• Bigby’s hand (5/5) – You can deal more damage with animate objects but you have less flexibility. This can push, grapple and protect on different turns. Pushing could be great for getting nasty enemies out the way, into AoE effects or off walls. At 30ft, this is some major distance for a push too. In typical circumstances, the grapple will probably be quite effective as it can deal damage and grapple. Particularly useful against a melee character and to let you move someone around while damaging them (so probably better than the push as the hand can move 30ft while grappling). It’s a dexterity saving throw so could work against a lot of melee creatures and is one of only a few ways to grapple a huge creature.
• Circle of power (4/5) – Strong protective spell against magic. The area is big enough to protect a lot of allies, but you’ll likely find yourself close to danger if you want to set this up. Be aware of spell attacks too as this won’t protect you from these. A good way to end magical effects on characters too.
• Creation (3/5) – This is difficult to assess as it depends on the circumstances of your adventure. As the item is only temporary, it means you’re either creating something to trick someone, or that you only need to use over a short period. Mundane objects are easy to procure, but I suppose you could create a fake item of worth while you steal the original or something like a key while leaving the owner non-the wiser that you’ve duplicated the key. I still feel it’s a bit situational, but this could be a fun spell with the right adventure and the right DM.
• Greater restoration (4/5) – You likely won’t need this a lot, but when you do, you’ll really appreciate having this spell available.
• Wall of stone (4/5) – Strong battlefield control spell. Isolate and split up enemies to make things a bit easier to handle.

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Do you have any favourite artificer spells? Or think I’ve been harsh on your favourite spell. Let me know in the comments below.

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