Getting your character to level 7 seems like a daunting task when you’re starting out. But if you can reach it you’ll be rewarded with some great 4th-level spells offering fantastic power once you gain the ability to cast them, even if it’s only once per day at first.
4th level spells have some incredibly powerful effects, not to mention raw damage.
But it’s also important to note that some of these spells are more powerful when cast at a higher level.
This means their original spell may not be as good until you’ve leveled up a bit – but these are all the best 4th-level spells worth considering.
Blight starts our list here, just as a simple damage spell with a very slim margin for an additional effect.
Offering a max of 8d8 is one of the highest damaging spells at 4th level, but the target has to succeed a Constitution saving throw to halve that (which is one of the highest stats on average in the Monster Manual).
The offhand effects involving plants and plant creatures can be pretty fringe edge cases. But if you can find a good opportunity for them in your campaign, it doesn’t hurt to pick this spell.
14. Phantasmal Killer
Source: Player’s Handbook p.265 Casting Time: 1 Action Range: 120 feet Components: Verbal, Somatic Duration: Concentration, up to a minute
Phantasmal Killer offers a pretty powerful crowd control effect, paired with some pretty great damage (4d10) that all relies on a Wisdom saving throw.
Unfortunately, if they succeed on the save nothing happens to them.
Which is why I’ve placed it so low on the list.
13. Dominate Beast
Source: Player’s Handbook p.234 Casting Time: 1 Action Range: 60 feet Components: Verbal, Somatic Duration: Concentration, up to a minute
Being able to turn the tide in a fight at a moment’s notice, or the ability to just command an innocent creature to do your bidding, can be real handy.
While the spell only lasts for a minute, you do get a temporary ally that can help fight your enemies. Or accomplish tasks that you would be unable to do by yourself.
Unfortunately, this spell is much better when cast at higher levels, so keep in mind it may not really pay off till later on.
12. Compulsion
Source: Player’s Handbook p.224 Casting Time: 1 Action Range: 30 feet Components: Verbal, Somatic Duration: Concentration, up to a minute
While you don’t get to turn your enemies into what is essentially a meat puppet, Compulsion offers a powerful ability with a few downsides.
You can compel your target to move up to their full movement in any direction that’s horizontal to you, provoking any number of opportunity attacks on its way there.
You don’t get to throw your target into lava or any other obvious threat of death.
But you can get rid of them in a pinch, or throw them into a less obvious trap.
11. Polymorph
Source: Player’s Handbook p. 266 Casting Time: 1 Action Range: 60 feet Components: Verbal, Somatic, Material (a caterpillar cocoon) Duration: Concentration, up to an hour
An iconic spell that’s been the cause of many silly Dungeons and Dragons moments.
Polymorph is a hilarious spell that allows you to turn an unwilling creature (or willing creature) into any other creature with an equal or lesser challenge rating.
If you’ll notice, you can also transform players into monsters, based on their level equal to a challenge rating.
Which means you can polymorph your 10th level cleric friend to a Young Dragon and let them go bonkers for an hour in a crazy power trip they will never replicate.
You can also use it for its normal purpose (I guess) of putting a powerful enemy out of a fight by turning them into a rabbit, then take out their underlings until you figure out a way to deal with them.
And being able to teleport anywhere in a 500-foot area (regardless of whether or not you can see it) is pretty powerful.
Dimension Door lets you skip movement puzzles, avoid combat, as well as a myriad of other uses.
A lot of classes have access to this spell. So I wouldn’t worry about it not being available to your party unless you have no spellcasters, and it’s not worth having more than two players with this spell in my opinion.
9. Ice Storm
Source: Player’s Handbook p.252 Casting Time: 1 Action Range: 300 feet Components: Verbal, Somatic, Material (a pinch of dust and a few drops of water) Duration: Instantaneous
Ice Storm is a really powerful area of effect spell that not only offers a great amount of damage, but also provides difficult terrain to keep your party safe (but only until your next turn).
I dislike the somewhat narrow radius of the spell (only 20 feet wide, 40 feet high). But the spell offers 2d8 bludgeoning damage as well as 4d6 cold damage, which is pretty high overall.
I feel like it could have been a little bit better with either a wider range (30 over 20) or permanent difficult terrain, but we can’t always get what we want when Fireball exists.
8. Giant Insect
Source: Player’s Handbook p.245 Casting Time: 1 Action Range: 30 feet Components: Verbal, Somatic Duration: Concentration, up to ten minutes.
I know this is ranked based on how useful the spell is, but can we talk about how hilarious it is to just throw a bunch of bugs and have them grow to a huge size like some weird version of D&D Pokémon?
You get to enlarge some bugs (the PHB lists some specifics, but it also is up to your DM for bugs that aren’t listed there), which makes them into the Giant version of that creature.
You can then issue them commands and they act on your turn.
Some insects have pretty powerful combat abilities, as well as you can probably scare the pants off somebody by suddenly throwing bugs that grow five times their size in six seconds.
7. Confusion
Source: Player’s Handbook p.224 Casting Time: 1 Action Range: 90 feet Components: Verbal, Somatic, Material (three nut shells) Duration: Concentration, up to a minute
Crowd control is always a key asset to keeping yourself and your allies alive.
And Confusion offers a pretty good (albeit random) way to do this.
Although it’s entirely up to the roll of a d10 to determine which effect the spell has on each turn, most of them completely stop the creature from harming you and your friends.
Unfortunately, they won’t attack themselves in confusion like Pokémon.
6. Control Water
Source: Player’s Handbook p.227 Casting Time: 1 Action Range: 300 feet Components: Verbal, Somatic, Material (a drop of water and a pinch of dust) Duration: Concentration, up to ten minutes
Magic is an incredibly powerful thing in Dungeons and Dragons.
And it’s important to remember that your average NPC in a given D&D setting cannot use magic, as it’s typically uncommon.
Player characters, however, can use magic easily.
Control Water does exactly what it says it does — you control water in a variety of ways.
You can flood an area by up to 20 feet (which is about the size of a giraffe), parting some water like Moses, redirect the flow of water (including defying gravity to travel up surfaces), or just suck up your enemies in a whirlpool.
The most powerful part of this spell(like many spells in D&D) involves how creative you can be with the spells at your disposal.
Wanna bring drought to your enemy’s base camp by redirecting their water supply?
Or do you have an underwater fight and you just want to create a square arena to even the playing field?
Creativity has no bounds.
5. Guardian of Nature
Source: Xanathar’s Guide to Everything p.157 Casting Time: 1 Bonus Action Range: Self Components: Verbal Duration: Concentration, up to a minute
The only self-buff on our list, Guardian of Nature, offers Rangers and Druids some unique bonuses that can come in handy in a variety of ways.
Primal Beast gives you some boosted damage, better movement, as well as a huge range of darkvision.
This form is pretty good for getting up close and personal with your enemies, which is great for strength-based rangers.
Giant Tree offers some more defensive options such as making all of the terrain within 15 feet of you difficult terrain (that’s incredible on its own), extra hit points, and advantage on different attacks and saves.
Spellcaster-focused builds will love this to keep enemies at bay and keep concentration up while they sling spells.
4. Storm Sphere
Source: Elemental Evil Player’s Companion p.22 Casting Time: 1 Action Range: 150 feet Components: Verbal, Somatic Duration: Concentration, up to a minute
Storm Sphere is probably my favorite spell on this list, for mechanics alone.
Not only do you get to conjure a sphere into a 20-foot radius that does bludgeoning damage, but you can also use your bonus action to shoot a lightning bolt that deals 4d6.
Enemies find themselves at a disadvantage for hearing checks due to this massive storm cloud of death near them. Which might come in handy sometimes.
3. Evard’s Black Tentacles
Source: Players Handbook p.238 Casting Time: 1 Action Range: 90 feet Components: Verbal, Somatic, Material (A piece of tentacle from a giant octopus or giant squid) Duration: Concentration, up to a minute
One of my favorite spells that has been ruined by Japanese anime.
EBT offers two of my favorite things in a spell: damage and crowd control.
Not only do you get to create difficult terrain, but if they walk into the area or start their turn they have to take 3d6 as well as be restrained (assuming they fail the Strength or Dexterity saves associated with this).
2. Banishment
Source: Player’s Handbook p.217 Casting Time: 1 Action Range: 60 feet Components: Verbal, Somatic, Material (an item distasteful to the target) Duration: Concentration, up to a minute
Possibly the most powerful spell on this list, and with good reason: you can wipe somebody from existence.
Now they do need to fail a Charisma saving throw, and the caster has to maintain concentration for the full minute (or else they just pop back into existence and the spell ends).
But if you manage to do those two things, you can wipe this poor sucker off the face of the material plane forever.
Oh, and they have to be native to the plane that you’re currently on.
So no demons or fae or things like that.
1. Sickening Radiance
Source: Xanathar’s Guide to Everything p.164 Casting Time: 1 Action Range: 120 feet Components: Verbal, Somatic Duration: Concentration, up to ten minutes
Sickening Radiance is not a spell I knew about before sitting down for this article.
But the more I read about it, the more I’m falling in love with it.
Not only do you get to deal pretty high damage (radiant damage no less, which has its own perks), you also get to add a level of exhaustion to any affected creature.
For the folks who don’t know what that means, it means the affected creatures have disadvantage on all ability checks including attacks, spells, saves, and others.
Every time they start their turn inside the light, they add another level of exhaustion (which only gets worse from there).
Oh, and this spell prevents any creatures from going invisible. Which is pretty neat too.
Jeff Nabors is a long-time writer, Dungeon Master, Podcaster and necromancer. He’s been playing Dungeons and Dragons since 3.5 Edition, and continues to play to this day in his own actual-play podcast.
