D&D: Five Of Our Favorite 4th-Level Spells
4th-level spells really shine in the new Player’s Handbook. They’re where you start really playing with power. Here are five of our favorites.
In D&D 5.5E, magic is where you’ll find all the most powerful abilities and effects. Why you might ask? Well consider for one that the company that makes D&D nowadays isn’t called Fighters of the Coast. But also it’s a matter of flexibility and versatility. Spells let you do things that no one else can do.
And 4th-level spells are where the power really starts to show through. Sure, 3rd-level spells are cool. But some 4th-level spells can end whole fights, depending, or at the very least, turn the tide.
Summmon Elemental
One of the most dramatic new additions to the 5.5E Player’s Handbook are the new Summoning spells. They do exactly what you’d hope, and summon you an ally for up to an hour at a time. Meaning a single spellbslot can be a force multiplier for multiple fights.
And Summon Elemental just feels good. It has that classic fantasy flavor to it. You pick one of four different stat blocks, fire, earth, water, or air, and then you have a friend. Who acts on their own initiative. And Summon Elemental has the biggest base damage of the 4th-level Summon Spells, so you can’t go wrong.
Polymorph
Polymorph was an amazing spell in 5th Edition, and in 5.5E it’s still just as good. It works differently. You no longer gain a whole secondary hit point pool. Sort of.
Instead you just gain a pool of temporary hit points, which is mostly the same. Except you can’t stack extra temporary hit points or heal your beast form to stay in it longer. But it’s still extremely useful. It’s a pile of temporary hit points – and is pound for pound an effective heal spell by that metric.
Fount of Moonlight
This is the first of two spells that are similar on this list. Fount of Moonlight let’s you radiate moonlight in a large area, granting you and your allies vision, if you need it. But it also gives each of your attacks an extra 2d6 Radiant damage, and as a reaction you can make any creature that damages you (within 60 feet) save or be Blinded until the end of your next turn.
And this heady cocktail of abilities lasts for up to 10 minutes!
Giant Insect
This spell let’s you conjure to your side a Giant Insect to fight for you. You get to pick from Centipede, Wasp, or Spider. And unless you’ve got a really good reason to want to do Poison Damage, you’ll want to summon the Spider.
Because it not only gets a ranged attack that does good damage. If that attack hits, it reduces a target’s speed to 0, no save allowed. It’s a potent way to control the battlefield, and it won’t even take your action, because the insect acts on its own initiative, following your commands.
Conjure Minor Elementals
Finally, the other big aura spell. We’ve talked about how potent this one can be. Conjure Minor Elementals let’s you summon a bunch of flying elemental spirits that have the overall effect of increasing your damage on each attack by 2d8. Which is good on its own, but combo that with a spell that gives you multiple attacks (like Scorching Ray) and you’ve got a recipe for succesipe.
Especially since the damage scales up by 2d8 per spell level above 4th. The right build can really make use of this to puree opponents.
Happy spellcasting! Which are your favorite 4th-level spells?
