Analysing the Spells from Heliana’s Guide to Monster Hunting for D&D 5e

Which spells should you choose and which are best.

About the spells

Heliana’s Guide to Monster Hunting contains 68 spells ranging from cantrip to level 7 (so no really high level spells). It actually crosses over a bit with the spells in Ryoko’s Guide to the Yokai Realms with a bunch of spells published in both books.

There are spells for all the classes other than the artificer. There’s also a spell list specifically for the tamer, Heliana’s own, monster catching class (like a Pokémon trainer). There’s also an entirely new school of magic known as biomancy.

Cantrips

• Can’t trip (1/5) – A round of prone immunity is fine, but at the expense of an entire action, it’s too much to be wasting your action on when there’s little reliable way to know if this has potential to be caused. There’s maybe some utility in standing someone up to save their movement, but you’ve still expended your action accomplishing this. Even at higher levels with more targets, this is a problematic spell from an action economy perspective.
• Can’trip (1/5) – This is perhaps difficult to anticipate and certainly easy to play around. If affected by this, a creature can just pick a higher level spell to use. Basically, you spend your action to slightly inconvenience an enemy. This is still the case when taking into account higher levels of play but at this point, creatures mostly have higher level spells to use.
• Concussion (2/5) – Deafened is very occasionally useful, but little enough that it’s just highly situational. This means the damage reduction instead of using something like toll the dead or firebolt just isn’t worth it.
• Ferocious strike (4/5) – There’s a decent place for this in your damage dealing repertoire. If we compare it to firebolt, using a light crossbow and assuming a fairly strong dexterity, we get the average damage in the table below. If you happen to have a high dexterity and one attack, this can generally outperform most damage dealing cantrips until the very highest levels. Just be aware that you’ll be limited by the weapon’s damage type, but you also get the benefits of the weapon itself (say if it’s a magic weapon).

Level	Dexterity modifier	Ferocious strike	Firebolt
1	+3	10	5.5
5	+4	13.5	11
11	+5	17	16.5
17	+5	19.5	22

• Flare (2/5) – The damage is reduced here but for a benefit that has just a 5% chance of occurring which feels too slim to me. The light is a nice bonus, but it’s not as flexible as something like dancing lights. Feel like the odds of making this worthwhile are too small.
• Howl (2/5) – Technically a bit situational, but it does have some utility. I can see this being used to scare creatures nearby but the mechanics here are challenging too as it’s a one way message for certain creatures. While it’s not explicit, the wording does imply this is limited to beasts which reduces the utility too.
• Magnetobolt (4/5) – Knocking prone is a decent effect and can be combined with allies to grapple or help martials. It is a decent damage reduction, but for potentially a few attacks with advantage for allies, this is up there with the likes of mind sliver (though mind sliver does work automatically on a hit).
• Pins and needles (2/5) – This is basically frostbite with slightly more damage, but slightly less reliable disadvantage on the next attack roll. I’m not sure how often creatures will fail their save by 5 or more. I suspect this will work more on weaker enemies that you’re probably not so bothered about and less on stronger enemies you are worried about. With that in mind, if I want to cause disadvantage, frostbite I think is going to be better.
• Primal scent (1/5) – I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve made an ability check that relies on scent. And that’s because the answer is 0. Sure, it’s possible it could happen, but it’s so rare that I think it’s possible it could never happen.
• Smokescreen (2/5) – Basically a method for escaping a creature’s reach as you suddenly can’t be seen. There are technically other ways to use this like if allies have things like blindsight or if you need to level the playing field because enemies have advantage, but it costs your action and concentration. At its most basic use, it’s no better than disengage, but there are some nicher use cases for it that may be useful in other circumstances that elevate it a little, but an action for a single turn smokescreen remains quite a high price.
• Spark (4/5) – This is kind of an alternative to eldritch blast. It works the same way except the damage is slightly lower, but it can cause the blinded condition on a critical hit. Because these are separate arcs of lightning, you make separate attack rolls which increases the chances of landing a critical hit. Causing blinded is great, but it’s only for a turn and only on a critical. Maybe that’s roughly even in power levels but I think I prefer the consistency of the extra damage. Still a great cantrip and opens up an eldritch blast like cantrip for other classes.
• Spore cloud (2/5) – Maybe alright on a druid or a warlock who are a bit more hardy and can handle melee, but sorcerers don’t really want to be using this. The damage is low, but the AoE can mean hitting a few creatures. But really you want to be using this for the poisoned condition. That means failing saving throws by a fair bit. This is a little awkward though and between the risks and the low odds, I’m not sure it’s worth such small damage.
• Stalker’s eye (2/5) – Consuming an action and your concentration is a high price to pay for a single attack with advantage. You also get more likely critical hits which is handy but I’m still not convinced this is worth the action cost.
• Swarm (3/5) – The damage reduction for this is quite a bit for causing the poisoned condition. It’s maybe just decent enough to be worth using as it can affect multiple attacks from the target.
• Water whip (3/5) – This is awkward to use unless someone in the party has a big bottle of water you can pull creatures towards. If there are natural sources of water around, then you can do interesting things like pull creatures into the sea and watch them struggle. Otherwise, I’d give that bottle of water to your barbarian and drag them into melee with them. The d6 is low and it can be a bit situational, but great when circumstances are right.

Level 1 spells

• Chameleon skin (4/5) – Being able to hide as a bonus action is a great way to stay safe. Handy for spellcasters that want to fly under the radar. It can even be cast ahead of combat.
• Cannotrip (4/5) – Partially nullifying a spellcaster is pretty good, but you likely want to be near matching their highest level spell slots. Great option against spellcasters, but it is situational. Spellcasters aren’t rare though.
• Corrupting ichor (2/5) – This averages at 9 damage. Guiding bolt will average 14 damage. One attack roll at advantage is alright, halved healing is more situational but potentially more impactful. The subsequent damage will take 2 turns to boost damage to equal guiding bolt. As standard, I’d say guiding bolt is better, especially as many creatures won’t even last long enough to feel these effects. This is OK in the right circumstances, but those are hard to predict.
• Daydream (1/5) – The idea here is to make a guard daydream while you sneak past. The problem you’ve got is this has a verbal component so unless your DM is generous, the guard will likely hear you casting the spell. It also only affects one creature and this isn’t guaranteed. Upcasting addresses some of this, but now you’re using higher level spell slots. I’d rather just use pass without trace. It works much longer, has a better boost and works for the entire party.
• Fixxit (1/5) – This feels very situational with quite a few stipulations and a non-permanent fixing. I’d struggle to justify adding this to my repertoire.
• Flipperform (3/5) – Situational in the sense that you’re not always dealing with aquatic situations, but you will want something that can handle water. This is the lowest level spell to do so and can be cast as a ritual which is handy and with upcasting, you can sort the whole party with a swim speed without spending a spell slot.
• Humperdink’s halitosis (2/5) – An average of 3 less damage per creature than burning hands, but it does linger so can easily do more damage as a result. The problem is the concentration. This is fine at really low levels, but quickly becomes something you don’t want to be spending your concentration on. Plus keeping creatures in place for the subsequent damage can be challenging. It does have a great name though.
• Initiative (4/5) – Improved initiative and preventing surprised can be really useful. RAW, this works whether you’re surprised or not, though a DM may rule against this if you’re unaware of being surprised. Regardless, this is still pretty good.
• Peppermint plate (5/5) – Less defensive than shield of faith, but it does damage and as it’s once per turn, can harm every creature making a melee attack against you. It’s not a lot, but nice for a tank like a paladin. It also lasts an hour so can last for multiple encounters. A worthy alternative to shield of faith.

Level 2 spells

• Arcanomagnetic repulsion (3/5) – A bit like blur but a little more complicated. This will cause disadvantage on many weapon attacks but certainly not all and it won’t affect many spells at all. Blur is just a blanket disadvantage on attack rolls made against you. This can also slow down and potentially knock over creatures made from ferrous metal or armoured by it. This makes it potentially a little better than blur against many humanoid enemies, but practically useless against many monsters. I’d say blur is a much better choice if you have that option. This could be good though if you expect to face a lot of humanoids.
• Dreamwalk (1/5) – This is incredibly niche and I struggle to know under what circumstances you’d expect to need it. Sure, someone might be invading your dreams with the dream spell, but that is probably incredibly rare.
• Eelskin (3/5) – Like magic weapon for unarmed strikes. There’s no boost to hit, but the damage boost is bigger and you’re harder to grapple. It’s no good for a grapple build though.
• Endoleech (3/5) – 1d6 less damage than scorching ray with a better damage type, but only 1 target and a range of touch. However, this has some extra effects. 15ft slower speed and no reactions can be useful, especially for escaping reach but it’s nothing spectacular. Just fine for a melee caster.
• Inequality (3/5) – This is a lot like bane and bless combined but with one recipient of each and slowed/enhanced movement. It has 1 less target and is worse than bless as it requires a saving throw to work (but equal to bane in that sense). Despite the movement impact, I think I’d prefer to use bane or bless and a lower spell slot, but this is still decent.
• Mortiferous pulse (3/5) – This is to lightning bolt what shatter is to fireball. You even have the same halved area and damage levels. Lightning bolt is normally the lesser option due to its more difficult to line up AoE and the same goes here. Decent enough at this level, but enemies will usually line up better for shatter.
• Preserve (2/5) – The point of this spell is to enable harvesting a bit later on after killing a creature. It’s only useful if you intend to harvest a fair bit and if you’re going to struggle to harvest soon after killing a monster. I think at best, that makes this kind of situational.
• Protection (4/5) – Resistance to almost all damage for a round, but can be prepared in advance is quite good. It does require concentration, but you’ll probably only concentrate on it for the first round of a combat and then can cast other concentration spells freely. I kind of like the idea of upcasting it. With level 4 spell slots, you can protect most of a party for some early combat resistances (when the enemy is at their most dangerous).
• Riptide (2/5) – Quite a decent control spell against a single, tough enemy, if you can get them in water, and far enough from land that they don’t escape the water quickly. Unfortunately, that’s quite a lot of ifs making this one quite situational.
• Shielding word (3/5) – This is some decent protection, but I’d still prefer shield with the potential to just prevent multiple attacks hitting. Still, this can potentially absorb more damage if not enough was done in the initial attack, and does open up protective magic for others against strength and dexterity saving throws (which can be really nasty on the damage front).
• Sugar rush (5/5) – Basically a lesser haste. The AC increase is lower, the movement speed increase is smaller and the extra action needs your bonus action. The big advantage here is targeting multiple creatures through upcasting. This is pretty huge. However, the drawbacks are important. You’ve got to keep moving which can be problematic for martials and avoiding opportunity attacks. The bonus action requirement for the extra action is a challenge too as some classes already heavily utilise their bonus action (like monks with flurry of blows). This is still a top tier spell for its level.

Level 3 spells

• Acid rain (3/5) – Half the damage of fireball, but it lasts for multiple turns. If you think you can keep enemies in the area, then it can be worth it, but that can be challenging. You’re much more likely to get the damage you want (and quicker) from a fireball. This needs 3 turns on all enemies to exceed that and it will require your concentration.
• Depth charge (5/5) – Slightly less damage than a fireball with a smaller range, but a better damage type. You can up that damage if the creature is submerged in liquid, but that’s likely to be rare. I’d prefer fireball, but this is nearly as good if you don’t have that.
• Enrage (3/5) – This is sort of half good against casters (for the potential concentration loss) and half good against martials for the extra attacks you can consume. Both effects are often not good on the same individual though. The mathematics becomes difficult as you have a lot of positional dynamics to consider like proximity of enemies and allies, how much to upcast (I’d often be tempted to upcast level 4 as level 4 spells aren’t much better than level 3 anyway), power levels of enraged creatures and whose reaction to consume (maybe to avoid attacks of opportunity). This can be quite good, but the action cost on subsequent turns is a decent cost.
• Firther’s shadow (2/5) – 4d10 to one creature isn’t loads at this level and what you learn may often not be that useful (but occasionally could be). About half the the things you might learn are mechanically useless. Intelligence is at least a good saving throw to impose.
• Food coma (4/5) – 50gp to fully heal someone as part of a short rest with no spell slots consumed (as it’s a ritual) is decent, but you may not want to use it a lot of the time unless things are quite dire due to the cost. Not sure I enjoyed the joke commentary though. Felt very cliche and a bit silly.
• Influenza (4/5) – Poisoned is a pain, even if the damage is quite low. The chance of causing the incapacitated condition can be occasionally nasty. The AoE is also fairly big making this a pretty good debuff spell.
• Magnetite shard (5/5) – A slightly weaker fireball that has multiple damage types (cold being less resisted than fire). It will do better against creatures in metal armor, so mainly humanoids, but not all humanoids. Think it’s a strong alternative to fireball at just -1d6.
• Mass leech (4/5) – This won’t add up to the same magnitude of healing and damage as a fireball, but healing yourself and damaging others can be strong in a large enough group. In fact, cure wounds upcast to level 3 will definitely do much less healing than the combined healing and damage from this with even just 2 creatures targeted. The challenge is throwing yourself into the middle of enemies, but this may be what you want to do if you’re a cleric with spirit guardians active anyway.
• Mireball (4/5) – Awkward in corridors but the damage is neither as good as fireball and the extra effects aren’t as problematic as hypnotic pattern, but watching enemies trying to slosh through mud in a corridor could be fun as they crawl around or keep slipping prone.
• Stench (3/5) – The damage isn’t a lot, but if you can keep creatures in the area, it can do well, but that will be a challenge. Poisoned will keep enemies less effective though and it can be a frustrating obstacle.
• Switcheroo (4/5) – A potentially really useful spell. Swap places with more fragile or resilient allies to ensure enemies are next to the right party members. You can also shift enemies out of the places you don’t want them too. This will get you out of grapples too and if you can fly, you could cause some serious fall damage.
• The bends (3/5) – Only OK damage for a single target and again poisoned is OK but with repeat saves to end it. It doesn’t need concentration though. It’s just OK.
• Zippit! (5/5) – An alternative to counterspell that’s kinder to your spell slots, but not to your concentration. Counterspell is an automatic success on spells lower than level 4, but this will create a problem for a spellcaster for multiple turns. They could turn to non-verbal spells, but this will be quite limiting and they may lose an action trying to open their mouth.

Level 4 spells

• Aura of impurity (5/5) – This affects all d20 tests if the creature fails their saving throw. That’s a lot of debuffing while they’re in your aura. This is particularly strong on a paladin who will like being in the middle of plenty of enemies.
• Blinding radiance (5/5) – Like spirit guardians with slightly better damage and it causes the blinded condition, but with a smaller radius. You’ll affect less creatures, but you’ll debilitate them more so I’d say they’re both good options. Even better that this means a paladin can use a spirit guardians-like spell as they wade into combat.
• Frogskin (2/5) – This maybe works on a druid that wants to use wild shape, but it still needs a setup turn to accomplish this but at least you’ll have some decent damage, decent debuffs and some tanky hit points. For others, I think this will be a struggle to do better than what you can do with other tactics. Either you already have better melee attacks, or you’re better suited to ranged attacks. The grappling benefits are alright, but too situational to rely on as a regular benefit. Then again, maybe this is the kind of spell you use when facing a tentacled grapple monster, in which case, this could be worthwhile, but those may not come along often.
• Fungal infection (4/5) – If you just want to use this spell for damage, it’s not worth it. It’ll take 3 turns to equal fireball’s damage and 4 to exceed it (with a smaller radius). And that’s if they consistently fail their saving throws. The tripping option could be amazing, or do nothing with a 75% chance of doing nothing to a creature each turn. There certainly are interesting debuffs here though and the choice of effects is always useful as you may want different debuffs for different situations.
• Gravity repulsion (4/5) – Decent defence against projectiles. Halving distance moved by creatures near you may be enough to prevent a creature reaching you on their turn. A bonus action push, damage and prone is decent too, especially for more evasive characters. I’d perhaps favour this on certain warlock builds who might want to get close to enemies, but not want to be overrun.
• Mechamagic (5/5) – My issue with this spell is you could accomplish similar things with other spells of lower levels. For example, longstrider will increase your movement speed and the temporary hit points just aren’t very much at all. I’d definitely consider this for a concentration-less fly though and the fact you can upcast it for multiple targets actually makes this one option very good. I feel like the rest fall a bit flat. This is a 5/5 for concentration-less flight, but much lower for everything else.
• Shackles of pain (3/5) – Make the source a tank, as they’re likely to be drawing the most damage, and target a low charisma enemy. This becomes free damage against the target. Just be aware that this might discourage enemies attacking your party tank, but if everyone can stay more evasive, then that might be alright. Having said that, you may find you still do more damage simply by casting a more dedicated damage dealing spells without having to concentrate (like a fireball).
• Tentacle lash (2/5) – The damage from this doesn’t necessarily outperform that of a ranger or blade warlock with their standard extra attacks and other damage boosts. Yes, there’s the pushing, knocking prone or disarming, but it’s not loads extra. Ranged classes, like wizards, will struggle here too without the resilience to survive in close combat and it consumes their concentration. Druids are perhaps your best bet by casting the spell then using wild shape to become a tanky creature with bonus damage, but that needs another setup turn so overall, this is a little underwhelming.
• Totem arrows (2/5) – I’m not convinced this does enough for a level 4 spell. The damage boost is like hunter’s mark. The other effects don’t really feel like enough for the level either. Especially to be concentrating on the spell. This is at least better on a ranger with their extra attack causing an additional of these effects each turn.
• Weavebend (5/5) – Usually better than counterspell by virtue of causing the spell effects against another creature you choose. The 10ft shifting of an AoE may not always be enough to stop all allies being hit, but may be enough to protect some allies.

Level 5 spells

• Bone cage (4/5) – This spell has wildly varying levels of power. Casting it in a graveyard or the remnants of a battlefield may provide vast amounts of temporary hit points and damage. Alternatively, you may simply find that no bones exist nearby as you’ve not killed your enemies yet, and by the time you kill them, this spell likely won’t be worth casting. As such, I think this spell fits in the realms of amazing in the occasional situations where many skeletons happen to be in the same place you are fighting. You might be able to carry some skeletons with you, but most DMs will probably take issue with overusing this, especially as your smallest skeletons will still be fairly hefty.
• Conjure anomaly (5/5) – This will summon something like a chuul, otyugh or roper, all of which are considerable upgrades on the creature from summon aberration, even when upcast to level 5. This makes this a top summon, but with the caveat that breaking concentration will lead to the creature turning on you.
• Endure (4/5) – Immunity to a bunch of conditions plus keep fighting once knocked to 0HP until you’ve failed 3 death saving throws. If you need someone to keep standing longer and you expect to face a lot of conditions, then this could be good but some aspects could also be situational. You can also use this to recover from certain conditions too.
• Feverskin (2/5) – The damage boost might be alright on a single attack class like a cleric or druid, but often these classes won’t be attacking in melee. The extra resilience is welcome, as is the increased speed, but I’m not convinced the most important builds for this are going to benefit a big enough amount.
• Gravity smash (3/5) – More damage than something like synaptic static, and a much bigger area (though synaptic static has a better secondary effect). The problem with this is everyone has a round to get out of the way. You can maybe use tactics around this like casting the slow or hypnotic pattern spells before (by another spellcaster) to keep creatures in place, but used without keeping creatures in the area will lead to this just missing.
• Incorporeality (5/5) – This is a little tricky to use as you become corporeal when it’s not your turn so the benefits come when incurring an opportunity attack for instance. In the right circumstances though, you can use it for the ultimate hit and run tactics as you blast spells and attacks then glide through a wall to be safe from enemies on the other side. Great if you use it right!

Level 6 spells

• Lungburst (4/5) – Quite a bit less damage than disintegrate (average of 49 Vs 75) but suffocation is potentially devastating and the target will have 0-5 rounds to stop suffocating or just die. This can make the actual damage matter much less and just cause death.
• Weave entanglement (2/5) – Keeping creatures in this area while not being affected by it yourself is going to be the challenge. Especially when they start landing gravity smash on themself. That can be done with tactics and work, but I think this is really hard to engineer into the spots you want this.

Level 7 spells

• Arcanomagnetic storm (4/5) – Like fire storm, but it lasts a minute. The damage per turn has potential to be similar, but a creature must start/move into the area and end their turn there to get that. It doesn’t take long for this damage to rack up, but getting creatures staying there is the hard part. There’s the potential to knock prone and move segments of the storm too. It has a higher ceiling for power than fire storm, and the area is equally huge.
• Power word shield (4/5) – An entire round of pretty serious protection is quite strong, for essentially another turn of survivability. It takes a reaction too so is kind on your action economy. The potential problem is that attacks are just transferred to allies, but that can sometimes be easier said than done.

Are the spells any good?

There are some interesting and unique spells in Heliana’s guide that are worth considering for your character. For instance, bone cage is a fun defensive and offensive spell despite being kind of situational. Weavebend makes an interesting and more tactical alternative to counterspell while sugar rush is a lower level version of haste. I like the idea of all of these and a bunch of the other spells too.

However, the spell list does end up stuck in the mire of slight alternates to existing spells. Weavebend and sugar rush distinguish themselves from counterspell and haste enough that I think this is fine. In fact I think it’s a great example of different use cases for a different approach to some similar effects and I think they warrant inclusion.

Unfortunately, many of these spells in Heliana’s Guide fail to distinguish themselves enough or in a way that’s meaningful and worth considering for your spell list. This is the case for spells like pins and needles and flare.

That’s not to say there aren’t attempts to try some new ideas. Unfortunately, the new ideas on show are too often extremely niche or un-impactful. I’m looking at spells like daydream, fixxit, preserve, concussion and smokescreen. None of these feel like they have the impact in real play that the designers want to give.

This does tend to be more of a problem with lower levels spells with design philosophies improving once spells get beyond level 2.

This is not my favourite 3rd party spell list, but it does still include some gems that open up new and interesting ways to play. It’s just a shame that quite a few spells also fall flat, especially those at lower levels that are more likely to be used.

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What do you think of the spells in Heliana’s Guide to Monster Hunting? Let me know in the comments below.

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