D&D: Five of the Best 7th-Level Spells
7th-level spells are the ones that’ll make your DM abandon all hope. And that’s just the start. These are some of the best.
There are a few good reasons most people don’t play D&D past 10th level. As always, the biggest reason is capitalism. It’s hard to make your leisure time consistent and durable when you’re hovering much closer to the brink of financial ruin than you’d care to admit.
But the other big reason is that it’s hard. And WotC has engineered 5th Edition to leave most of the work in the DM’s hand. Past about 11th level, there’s very little in the way of published modules for players/DMs. And there’s absolutely nothing officially published to help DMs deal with the challenge of running games at a higher level.
But 7th-level spells highlight why there’s that extra support needed. They can outright win fights. Change campaigns. Overcome challenges of all sorts… assuming your game makes it that far.
Forcecage
This is a spell that may as well be called “win one encounter.” Forcecage is one of the best 7th-level spells because it’s absolutely mean. It encloses an area up to 20 feet on a side (which is large enough to catch gargantuan creatures) and either completely encapsulates them in a sealed force box, or leaves them vulnerable due to 1/2-inch diameter “bars” spaced evenly apart so that spell effects and ranged attacks can get inside.
No saves. And once trapped in the Forcecage, only some magic works to escape. Teleportation magic or effects only work if the creature can first pass a Charisma save.
This means you can basically isolate a target and rain spell effects down upon them. A common one is to use the Sickening Radiance spell, which inflicts levels of exhaustion on a failed save, killing a creature once it hits ten levels of exhaustion. Or even something like Call Lightning will do the trick.
Divine Word
Divine Word may not be as dramatic as Forcecge, but it sure does get the job done. This is another example of how the best 7th-level spells make you more than merely mortal. Divine Word takes a bonus action to cast, and depending on how many hit points a creature has, unleashes debilitating effects on them.
Targets of your choice within 30 feet of you might be deafened, blinded, stunned, or killed outright if they have 20 or fewer hit points. Meaning you can clear out whole swaths of low-level creatures with a single bonus action, and still have your action left to do whatever else you want.
Plane Shift
Plane Shift changes the nature of your campaign dramatically. It opens the doors to all of D&D’s cosmology because now you can travel to alternate planes of reality. You can go to the Astral Plane, the Seven Mounting Heavens of Celestia, the Nine Hells, or anywhere else you decide.
It’s not just the world map, it’s the reality map that opens up at this point. And on top of that, it’s a fantastic spell in combat too. It’s a quick and easy get-out-of-jail-free card for you and up to eight other willing creatures.
Or you can use it to banish an unwilling creature to another plane, and if they fail their Charisma save, they’re stuck until they can figure out how to get back (or they die). So you can tell someone to go to hell, and then send them to the specific hell of your choice. Hope that villain wasn’t supposed to be recurring!
Teleport
Much less dramatic but more practical than Plane Shift is Teleport. This is one of the best 7th-level spells because it lets you and your party travel around the world you’re in. Sometimes you don’t need to go to the Elemental Plane of Fire (or wherever). You need to get to King Rodric’s castle before the Baron’s army can lay siege to it.
And Teleport works like a charm, and instantaneously. As long as you know where you’re going, there’s very little chance of a mishap. Best not to think about what could go wrong, because all you have to do is roll high and you’ll be great!
Simulacrum
Finally, there’s the best 7th-level spell in the game hands down. Simulacrum creates an illusory duplicate of any humanoid creature (most often yourself). It lasts “until dispelled” meaning you can just double your firepower for a single 7th-level spell slot, and then you can rest to gain that spell slot back so you can cast Forcecage or Plane Shift or one of the other spells on this list.
And that’s before we even get to the oft-argued ability of Simulacra to cast the spell Simulacrum themselves, allowing a creature to create an “infinite army” of snow wizards duplicated duplicates. Most DMs will say no, or be tricked into allowing this. Be wary of the one that gives a full-throated yes after asking if “you’re sure” that’s the road you want to go down.
What are your picks for the best 7th-level spell?
