D&D: Five of the Most Broken Spells in 5th Edition
There’s broken, and then there’s broken. And these are five of the most broken spells in 5th Edition D&D. Make sure you’ve got ’em.
Spellcasters are among the most powerful classes you can find in D&D. And a big part of the reason for this is that they can cast some of the most broken spells. Spells that can turn the tide of a whole fight.
Or stop a whole encounter before it even starts. Now. Before we get into it, broken here just means extremely powerful. Like, so good you’d almost be foolish not to take it. And there’s nothing wrong with having good abilities and spells in the game. But these ones might make the DM groan a little, is all we mean.
Silvery Barbs
No spell generated so much heat so fast as Silvery Barbs. This is one of the best Reaction spells in the game, and it’s not hard to see why. Silvery Barbs causes a target to reroll a successful Attack Roll, Saving Throw, or Ability Check. Which is huge. It can turn a critical hit into a miss.
It can turn a successful save into a ruined night. And you get it as early as 1st level. It’s hard to imagine not taking it. Shield is pretty good, but Silvery Barbs can be used offensively!
Polymorph
This spell can turn around an entire fight. And just because it’s “broken” doesn’t mean it’s horrifically unbalanced and you should ban it from your table. But you should know that this spell can take a character from being on the edge of death to full hit points for just a single spell slot.
Admittedly it’s a single-level spell slot. But few spells turn things around like Polymorph. It transforms an ally into something powerful and still lets them do all the things that make them cool. Unless your ally is a Wizard or something. But most classes love being transformed into a T. Rex or Giant Ape or the like.
Forcecage
This 7th-level spell will shut down an enemy, no save allowed. You can either wall them away completely or leave little gaps so that you can attack the enemy through the invisible bars of the Forcecage. A popular combo is to leave a Sickening Radiance going around someone’s Forcecage so that eventually they fail their saving throws vs. exhaustion and die. But there are faster ways to kill someone stuck in a Forcecage.
Shapechange
If you thought Polymorph was a broken spell, just wait until you become a dragon in the middle of a fight. It’ll change the way that encounter was going for sure!
Wish
Finally, there’s Wish. Which is the most powerful spell in the game. So of course it’s busted. And you don’t even have to run the risk of never casting it again. This spell, at its core function, lets you cast all those spells that take a ton of time as a single action, thus outstripping some of the balancing factors.
All those spells that take ten minutes or more to cast, suddenly become combat options. This means, to say the least, you can cast Simulacrum in the middle of a fight, and suddenly there are two (or more) of you.
What’s your pick for most broken spell in 5E?
