Tier Ranking Cantrips in D&D 5e (Part 1)

Hear me out on encode thoughts… Magical sexting….. I am WITHOUT A DOUBT, making an underground smut shop ran by a bard in my next royal court that the players can discover.

My wizard has illusionary bracers (I didnt even ask for them but my GM/DM gave them to me) and I love at range blasting an enemy with double firebolts to save spell slots for shield or whatever on a long endurance fight. I hit 3d10 x 2 (also buffed by +spell damage too) at no cost to a spell slot and I dont have to worry about aoe damage from some spells. Also, my wizard is a bladesinger (mobile feat) so I also greenflame blade twice or booming blade two enemies and move away.

I know this is an older video but from what I understand is that booming blade does work with summoned blades like shadow blade.

Their use of the B for build ranking is really terrible. Let me explain by using feats as an easy example. Using their logic sharpshooter and great weapon master would be B tier feats simply because they only apply to specific weapon types even though they are almost unanimously considered some of the best feats in the game. A spell should not be rated based on how many people use it but instead on how well it performs when used properly and how often it is applicable. I find it weird that they rate a cantrip such as chill touch so highly for its extremely niche additional effects but are willing to lower booming-blade to B tier simply because many spell casters wouldn’t use it.

So I actually use Encode Thoughts heavily as a DM for my version of the Underdark, where the trade in encoded thoughts constitutes a large segment of the economy down there - and yes, players can sell their own thoughts for money

I always interpreted the "hostile" in these enchantment spells to mean Hostile in the Impressions section of the Social Encounter rules, rsther than just Instant Encounter

Blade Ward might have some good pairing with Bladesinger's specialized Extra Attack feature. Doesn't mean I'd promote it from C, because that's really niche, but still some food for thought maybe

encode thoughts was amazing when I had to craft a conspiracy against some high level casters as a great way to overcome read thoughts.

I disagree with Guidance being a reaction being a good thing. If you reaction to guidance a party member so they can succeed on a skill check in combat means you are sacrificing the ability to counterspell or silvery barbs an enemy. Guidance a a reaction is at most a B tier

infiltrator running a disguise uses friends to convince some npc into getting into restricted area, admitting to hidden or restricted information, or to convince them that the gates are being attacked and need backup...... I love friends but yeah it has a lot of cons and restrictions unless you want to end in a bad spot.....

if you encounter a npc and somehow find out they have it, idk how and likely you wouldn't find out, and that npc was somehow in a position of power and involved in some conflict you could really have some awesome encode thoughts play where you extract thoughts from some other key npc or expose your own to prove innocence or even distort your own memories or thoughts intentionally in order to deceive others.... but I feel like that is shooting yourself in the foot because it would be useless unless you encounter someone else with it and even then you could just go about things the normal way..... maybe if there is impending memory loss.... maybe artificer making a intelligent piece of equipment? last one sounds like a super stretch.

People made fun of me when my teifling hexblade barbarian took chill touch. We were playing curse of strahd . Also, I was playing a Levietus trifling so I was playing off the cold aspect using this and armor of agsthyd

Booming Blade and the Crusher feat is amazing. Apply booming Blade and then they get pushed back 5 feet. If they move to get back into melee range it goes off. Caught my DM off guard with this combo.

I remember when gaming was all about the game and not the rules.

Friends is like c d tier with disguise its S tier also even tho most people will say it has to be one you can see it never actually says that you can technically use it on anyone any where.

Dancing Lights: The problem with lighting a torch is the "It's centered on you" problem. You have instantly shown any enemy where you are exactly where as if an enemy spots your dancing lights they have a 240 ft circle they will need to check. Also it lets you illuminate things without have to close the distance yourself.

What do you do with a glowing figure? I mean yeah you use it to lure out the ambushes. Minor illusion doesn't make light, but your figure is legitimately glowing. Pairing that with Prestidigitation and Minor illusion you have a legitimate repeatable sighting for whatever you want or need it to be since that can make anyone's voice or any sound you can think, besides minor illusion can be countered with investigation to determine it is an illusion l

Disagree Monty. Friends plus disguise self is so op.

The only reason I've ever thought to take Friends was to use the 'drawback' to set the now enraged target on whoever it is I'm disguised as, and if I needed to publicly discredit or dispose of a character (just set off the timer in public, innocently say hi ask you walk past and then get 'viciously attacked/accused of things for no reason' to gather sympathy for yourself and spread distrust/dislike for 'your attacker' in one fell swoop).

So yeah. It's utterly useless for actually making friends but for manipulative faces or illusionists it's definitely something to ask the DM how they'd rule the 'is now hostile to you' part (are they hostile to the person they thought charmed them or do they magically know it was you no matter what, and how hostile do they get?), and well if the specifics suit your needs it could actually be one of the most powerful niche cantrips out there.
(Guy I pondered having it did take it. Never got around to using it since my guy kept succeeding at discrediting the people he didn't like just by spreading rumors and having charmed most people around with Panache already but well, it felt good to have an instant 'mass chaos/nuke an NPCs reputation' button in my back pocket in case I ever needed it (also had Mask of Many Faces invocation as well so damn I wish we'd had more 'multiple enemy factions' to play off each other)~ XD

But yeah. I'd give it like a C personally. You need specific builds and goals to use it (which go against the implied intention) AND it's DM dependant for its effects but if that all aligns it's kinda unmatched at what it does.

Side note: Firm agreement that Chill Touch is madly underrated. The fact the hand visibly clings to the target until the next turn also means that it can be used to help target invisible enemies; getting it to land the first time is tricky of course but if no one has See Invisibility skills then it can be a team helping life saver to help them all track that sucker down <3
(Ended up realizing that use for it in a very nasty fight once with invisible killer Shia Labeouf a custom boss encounter and well it was pretty much the saving grace of the fight, especially because as it turned out said enemy was also meant to have one 'full hp regeneration upon death' moment so yeah, pretty much cut the entire fight in half thanks to a silly little cantrip I only picked up because I thought it'd be cool to try collecting options for every damage type! XDD)

Friends should last for an hour. That'd make it much more useful. At least 10 minutes. lol

Friends is the greatest spell in the game, just disguise self into the big baddy say a Rogue Syndicate leader. Walk around casting friends on all the minions and start a revolution!

As someone who played using the play test guidance, I’d personally call it a B. The reaction is fantastic but the trigger is where it gets weird because so many skill checks are based on a curve and not strictly a “Pass/Fail” base. So it hardly ever came up

"If it (Bladeward) was a Bonus Action it would be S tier."

Laughs in Earth Genasi proficiency bonus times per day.

I had an npc that used encode thoughts to transmit the idea that the badguy had people under geas, and who was definitely sympathetic even tough they were ordered to opose the player characters and not say anything supportive to them.

Blade ward was meant for Eldritch Knight. They have an ability that lets you cast a spell as an action, then attack is a bonus action. I could see it being useful then.

Curious. I dident know some of these. I do think Druidcraft's ability to detect weather can be abit more usefull though. For one its 24 hours ahead. And sometimes (specially whren you are near mountains you might not be able to see clouds or other weather phenomena coming. Also note that weather is more then just rain. If a typhoon is coming, that might be usefull to know ;)

Cant you use control flame to basicly create a mega torch? I seem to recall you could use it to make a ranged attack as well or was that a house rule from baldurs gate 3?

Dancing lights seems like it could be used for shenanigans. Convince people the lights are actually will o wisps or something. But tbh you could do the same thing with minor illusion I guess?

Encode thoughts was pretty nifty during a MTG campaign. But its basicly used to create spies by removing the fact from their minds that theyre actually spies. So you create sleeper agents in a sense. And then later when you need them again and when they have the opposing peoples trust you can reintroduce their original thoughts again. You can bypass things that force people to tell the truth that way. Because they cant spill information they dont know. For all they know theyre telling the truth. Aside from this very tiny niche thing though....yeah kinda useless. Basicly a mcuffin for the DM to use. Not so much the players.

With guidance you can know upfront (to adegree) that its needed. Rogue or bard needs to pick a lock? Guidance that die roll! The face of the party is going to converse with some people? Just give him guidance. If he needs it he has it. Doesent need it? No harm done. Whenever you would ask the DM if you could do a thing you could ask for guidance first before you ask if you can roll the dice. But it does feel abit 'gamey' in my opinion.

Gust sounds fun for tossing people off ledges. Or potentially blowing a nauxious cloud or the like back at the enemy, Although very slowly I guess?

I agree that dancing lights isn't useful in most situations, but I had a blade bard that used it often in a grim night/dark low level campaign where it was important to illuminate spaces but not give our group's position away. Carrying around those lights gives EVERYTHING that can see you a perfect image of you in the dark, but deployable lights even illuminate under the water or spaces you'd much rather not go. Not amazing, but it has a function where it excels over others unlike many cantrips

Booming Blade is fantastic on a rogue. Potentially adds sneak attack, including on opportunity attacks with War Caster, and you can goad monsters into activating the secondary damage of Booming Blade by disengaging with Cunning Action.

Fun fact: the new errata'd booming blade is an order of magnitude beyond S-tier for paladins that take magic initiate for it, since having Find Steed allows you to duplicate a spell's effects onto your steed if it is a self-spell, effectively kicking your steed into making a juiced up attack (combine this with a leveled smite spell, and suddenly your steed can also smite with the force of a thousand suns). In hindsight, treating it as a spell with a range of 5 feet was much more reasonable.

More attack rolls for Eldritch Blast means you can miss more

Friends: D Tier Right?



Baldur's Gate 3: So you were saying? A Tier

If Dancing Lights wasn't concentration it'd be more useful, like C tier if you don't have dark vision.

Blade ward: an bladesigning wizard could use it as an attack at lvl 6.

Whats funny is so many of the D tier non combat spells like Friends would benefit from a level scale like Firebolt does.

Imagine Friends, at 5th level, getting an upgrade that said "the creature must make a Saving Throw to know they've been charmed. They gain advantage if you have already cast Friends on them, and auto succeed if youve cast it 3 times." Or it increases the duration allowing you to get farther away!

Friends don’t let friends use Friends?

~_~

Friends: use it to intimidate people. They won’t like you anyways.

Use friends for advantage on deception checks to lie that you didn't use friends on the NPC earlier?

Note the Control cantrips have only Somatic components, meaning they can be cast from hiding. A stealthy character can douse or dim torches and most mundane light sources silently using Control Flames, whether for slipping past enemies or setting up an ambush.

Take a look at a Shadow Monk’s higher level features and then imagine that monk can turn bright light into dim light at will.

Booming Blade and Green-Flame Blade always confound me - Booming Blade requires the attacker to *willingly* move away from whoever is casting it - if you're a spellcaster you're a great target for the melee enemy you might want to use it on... and Green-Flame Blade needs two targets next to each other...

Now. If you're being swarmed attacking 2 baddies with flames... hmm

I remember when I tried to trick a character into thinking I was invited into the palace. I rolled a nine.....they rolled an 8. This NPC thought my little red tiefling was a fucking tabaxi. I didn't even have the friends' spell. I just got incredibly lucky.

Friends with enchantment wizard's "alter memories". They won't even remember you charmed them.

For Guidance, there is no reason why you can't hold your action on Guidance to trigger when a skill check comes up (unless you're concentrating on another important spell). And if you know you're about to come into combat, such as spotting an ambush or heading into a lair, you can start casting Guidance to give yourself or someone else (such as an assassin rogue) a bonus to their initiative rolls, and because it's a cantrip, there is no reason not to constantly spam it. The only tricky situation I've been in when using Guidance is in social interactions (because casting a spell with components can alert the NPCs), but a sorcerer can use Subtle Spell to get around that.

Use Friends to convince them to submit to being hog tied.

Eldtritch blast is A tier imo. Only charisma casters benefit from taking it. While EB is more guaranteed damage the average is still the same as firebolt. So unless your charisma is as high as you spellcasting modifier it wont be as good.

Cold take: prestidigitation, thaumaturgy, and druidcraft should be automatically known by any character who has arcane, divine, or primal spellcasting respectively without counting against their cantrips known, you should be able to apply multiple effects simultaneously, and you should be able to cast them as a free action when you spend a spell slot to cast a spell to flavor the casting of that spell.

Another thing to add to eldritch blast (as if it needed more pros) is that it is such a reliable source of damage, warlocks dont even really need offensive spells which is great for their few spell slots and allows you to take a lot of cool concentration or otherwise utility spells you might not have been able to otherwise

Why not disguise self then cast friends......

Blade ward only almost ok on Eldritch Knight, since they could Blade Ward then attack as a bonus action

I disagree with control flames being rated D for the specific reason that it can double the light cast by a flame. This means you can make a bullseye lantern cast a 120 ft cone of bright light, with a 240 feet cone of dim. This is truly a ludicrous amount of light, and if you need something to fill a cantrip slot, I can see it being useful.