Top 10 3rd Level Spells Part 2 in DnD 5E

third level spells are some of the most useful spells that most players gain access to as a lot of games take place at around the level where you obtain third level spell slots so i thought it's best to go over some of the more best spells you can take which might be considered the numbers 20 through 11 spots after the first original video and at number 10 we have pulse wave this is a spell from explorer's guide to wild mount so you might not be able to take it unless your dm gives you permission to actually use the spell and basically what it does is allow you to push or pull a whole bunch of creatures within a 30 foot cone dealing around 66 force damage to each of them now the damage a pulse wave isn't super impressive in fact it's about 7 less damage on average per target than what fireball does but it does have the very useful application of allowing you to push a whole bunch of things off of a cliff or if one of your party members sets up some hazardous terrain it's a super useful way of controlling enemies because it allows you to push or pull whereas most spells that allow you to do either of those things don't allow you to pick one or the other so if you have enemies on the other side of a cliff you can pull them towards you so they fall off or if they're right on the edge of the cliff obviously being able to push them into it is just as useful if someone sets up the fire wall spell pulse wave can be a great way to push them in and out of the firewall for extra damage in addition to the force damage it deals which is pretty decent pulse wave is definitely a combo spell and not really something you use on its own for its own merits which is why it's only the number 10 spot on this list it also has a constitution saving throw which is usually pretty bad against monsters from the monster manual as that's usually the best at that most of them have and at number 9 we have sleet storm this spell has the effect where you summon a freezing rain of sleet in a 40-foot radius 20-foot tall cylinder at a point you can see within 150 feet of you the effect lasts for a minute as long as you concentrate on it and the area inside the sleep storm is considered heavily obscured as well as dousing any flames that are in the area the ground is also covered with ice making it difficult to rain and if a creature starts to turn the area or enters it they have to make a dexterity saving throw or else fall prone it also has some extra effects of forcing concentration checks but basically what sleet storm does is it just creates a huge area of cover which makes it one of the ultimate running away tools if a group of enemy orcs is advancing on you you can just drop a slate storm on them and run away because the area of the sleet storm is gigantic and it blocks line of sight so they can't shoot arrows through it unless they physically go through the sleet storm and get to the other side since the area it creates is considered heavily obscured or i guess they can shoot through it it's just they'll be doing it at disadvantage since they're considered blinded through the heavily obscured and if creatures do try to go through the sleet storm they have a chance at falling prone before they can make it through in addition to moving at house speed because it's difficult terrain and remember you need to spend half your movement in order to get up from the prone condition which means if they fall prone a single time there's a good chance they won't be able to physically go through a sleep storm before the minute duration is up and its effects on concentration are a little bit better than just forcing a normal constitution saving throw because if the creature starts its turn inside the sleep storm while concentrating on a spell they have to succeed a constitutional sane throw against your spell save dc or else they lose the concentration whereas normally they only have a dc of 10. so if you have a spell saved dc of something like 15 it might actually be enough to end their spells and since even spell casters will have a hard time getting out of it sleet storm might be a better spell if you're trying to counter a group of spellcasters than even counterspell because you'll be forcing a harder than normal concentration checks on them and a lot of the good spells require concentration including sleep storm itself although definitely the main benefits of sleet storm is just running away it's kind of better at this job than all the other wall spells that are of the third level range as well although since its radius is so gigantic and it does affect allies as well you do have to be careful about where you position it and it might not be useful at all if you're just in really small areas where your entire party might be forced to undergo its effects but when it comes to controlling the largest amount of area with a decent effect i think sleet storm is probably the best even if plant growth technically can cover a larger range sleet storm covers the second largest range which doesn't require the actual plants nearby to use you can just use sleet storm kind of wherever you want just as long as you have the spell slot available at number eight we have enemies abound this is a single target fear spell which allows you to target one creature within 120 feet of you that you can see and force them to make an intelligent saving throw if they fail they treat all creatures he can see his enemies until the spell ends and during that creature's turn if it tries to attack something or use one of its abilities it has to choose a random target amongst the creatures that i can see within range for that ability and also if any creatures provoke an opportunity attack from it and must attack if it's able to however this effect has no effect on someone who's immune to the fighting condition now what's really great about this is that it essentially removes one target from combat while also granting you some extra damage so you get a two for one from this but only if you're able to position it correctly the best way to use it is on a creature that's in the middle of an enemy group of mobs that way they have a higher chance of just attacking one of their nearby allies and they'll most likely get off that opportunity attack because their allies will have to move closer in range in order to engage in combat and they won't be worried about an opportunity attack from one of their allies however if you're just fighting a lone enemy the spell is completely useless because it will just choose one of your party members as its random target also it does have a chance to just attack your party members it doesn't have to attack its allies it just chooses its target at random which could mean whatever your dm decides however another downside is that each time the target takes damage they get to attempt to save and throw again in order to break the spell so as soon as it starts attacking things it might actually break the spell after getting hit by a single attack which is not very good for a third level spell slot or you can get a whole bunch of mileage out of it since it targets intelligence as its saving throw which is one of the best saving throws to target against most of the monsters in the monster manual another niche thing about the spell is that if you're a sorcerer who can subtle cast it you can cast a mayhem with a spell if you use it in a crowded location in order to start a distraction like if you subtle cast enemies are bound on someone in a bar who just starts attacking people people might think they've just gone crazy and started attacking things for no reason and it's also a great spell for an enemy bad guy to cast on players for basically the same effect in order to try to give them bad renown within the city and at number 7 we have hunger of hadar this is a warlock only aoe which creates a 20-foot radius sphere of blackness and coal where everything inside the radius is considered blind as no light that's magical otherwise can illuminate the area and if a creature starts its turn inside the area they automatically take 2d6 coal damage without a saving throw and then if they end their turn inside the area they then get to make a saving throw or else take 2d6 acid damage as well and while inside the area it's considered difficult terrain so everything you put inside the hunger fedor has half movement because the difficult terrain and are also blinded so they're definitely going to want to try to get out so they can actually start attacking things without disadvantage but if you are able to keep them in there longer then they're just going to constantly take damage and if the creature stays in there for two turns and fails both of its saving throws then they take damage equivalent to a fireball or thinking of it in another way if they only take the damage once they only take half the damage of a fireball so the mileage you get out of its damage is heavily dependent on how you're able to actually keep them inside the hunger of a dark this spell does do a good job of keeping things inside of it on its own but it definitely can benefit from extra support like maybe pushing them back inside of if they try to get out with the pulse wave this spell is an excellent area of control effect which also deals some decent damage if they stay in there for too long which makes it a really good spell to pick on a warlock especially since they don't have access to fireball baseline anyway and at number six we have a major image this spell basically allows you to create a super realistic illusion just as long as it fits within a 20-foot cube which is pretty big whatever you create it looks sounds and even smells like a completely real thing so if you try to create an illusion of a dragon you'll be able to hear its sounds smell dragon breath or whatever is needed in order to sell the illusion as being real and the applications of being able to create an illusion that seems completely real is entirely dependent on how creative you are personally or how your dm rules with illusions there are rules of major image where a creature can use an action in order to investigate the illusion where if they pass an investigation check against your spell save dc you'll be able to discern that it's an illusion and see through the image however this is where dm participation really plays a major factor in the usefulness of major image if you for example use major image to create a wall of fire which completely blocks up an area where your enemies can't go around it the wall of fire will give off heat similar to an actual fire but it's not hot enough to deal any damage so to your enemies it will look exactly like a wall of fire which normally should stop them from trying to go through it if they think it would kill them however they do have the option to perform an investigation check to see through it but whether they should actually attempt the investigation check or not is hotly up to debate because normally if they just to see a wall of fire immediately appear in front of them there's no reason for them to think it's fake especially since they can feel the heat so there would be no need to do an investigation check if a dragon appears behind a wall and then comes out chances are a whole bunch of enemy creatures aren't going to try to investigate to see if it's real because they'll be too busy running away there's a lot of official modules which have very scary creatures show up and the modules are set up in a way where it assumes your players will try to run away from it and normally your players aren't trying to see if it's an illusion first before running so this is where dm trickery can really make or break how useful an illusion is on whether they're willing to just let creatures pretend it's real without any checks or not because if a whole bunch of creatures all perform investigation checks at once chances are one of them will find out it's fake and then just tell the others and the chances are pretty high if you have enough people doing that check so if the illusion is good enough realistically a dm should not have to roll anything and just have the creatures act as if whatever you create the illusion of was actually real however sometimes the players are not as clever as they think if you're fighting a group of orcs out in the open and your player uses major image to summon a mini tarasque i think it would probably be appropriate for the orcs to scratch their head a little bit that a mythical creature just appeared in front of them out of nowhere which would definitely constitute some kind of probable investigation check to determine an illusion or not where this could make the player who used the illusion mad because they thought it was a super good idea this is why a lot of tables just kind of avoid using illusion spells because there's a lot of wiggle room on what should or should not require an investigation check which should just inspire fear immediately and have things run away or if their illusions are even a good idea that would do anything however in theory illusions are super great and major image is an excellent spell in theory especially if you cancel the sixth level spell slaughter higher the illusion becomes permanent which allows major image to be an excellent dm tool in order to place traps inside of dungeons because you can just say it was placed there with a six level version of it and at number five we have dispel magic and tongue these are two really niche situational spells where their niche usefulness comes up quite more often than most other niche spouse dispel magic allows you to dispel magical effects where you can choose a creature or object or magical effect that you can see within range and if the effect was the third level spell or lower the effect just ends if the effect is fourth level or higher then you need to make an ability check using your spellcaster modifier in order to try to dispel it so if you come across an enemy creature who set up a liam's tiny hut you can just get rid of it with dispel magic and make them a lot more vulnerable and there's usually a lot of magical traps within dungeons that you can get rid of with a dispel magic like if your dmu's made your image to set up some kind of illusion that your party somehow knew about and tongues simply grants whoever casts the ability to understand any language it hears as well as allow anyone who can hear it speaking understand what's said it doesn't actually teach you any languages but allows the person who's under the effect to effectively communicate with anyone that has a language there are some creatures in the game which don't have any languages like most beasts so it won't allow you to speak with them but if they do have some kind of exotic language it's an excellent way to be able to communicate there are some dm's who just won't have anyone speak exotic languages in their game so tongues might not be very useful at all but in pretty much every official module and game that i've ran there has been a couple of instances where problems arise because the party could just not speak to whoever they were talking to because of the language barrier which tongues is very helpful at removing and since the ability to need to be able to speak to people different languages and the ability to dispel things comes up more often than needing the ability to breathe underwater these two spells are some of the better niche spells you can pick up at this level and at number four we have fear now fear as the spell is different from the frightened condition and the frightened condition isn't very good so i'm sure a lot of people write off this fierce spell as not very good either just because of it's a really generic name but it's actually one of the best control spells of the third level it's just there's a lot of really good control spells in the third level so it's overshadowed a bit as what it does is allowed to target each creature within a 30 foot cone in front of you where they have to succeed at a wisdom saving throw otherwise they drop whatever they're holding and become frightened for up to a minute or until you lose concentration and while they're frightened by the spell in addition to having the frightening condition applied to them they gain extra negative benefits where they have to perform the dash action on their turn in order to move away from you when the safest available route on each other turns unless there's literally nowhere else to move and since the frightened condition has the effect where they can't willingly move closer to you it is possible they might be stuck in a corner of a wall and not be able to run around you in order to get away further in addition if the creature is able to end its turn in a location where they don't have line of sight of you anymore then they can make another wisdom saving throw in order to try to end the effect on themselves so what's great about fear is that it takes up the creature's action in order to perform the dash action which makes it effectively crowd controls they can't use that action for something else but also forcing them to drop their weapons where they might be completely disarmed if they do end the effect and there's a chance they'll just keep having the crowd control active if they get stuck in a corner and can't move away from you anymore where they don't actually get to attempt the saving throw unless they are specifically out of line of sight so there's a good chance that the fear will just be a straight up a one minute long crowd control effect where the enemy is stuck using their action to perform a dash action each turn even if they're no longer able to move so fear really plays to the strength of the fighting condition as it's possible to block a creature from being able to get out of your line of sight because they're not allowed to run closer towards you at all which can turn fear into a really powerful save or suck spell where if a creature fails a saving throw a single time they might be out of the combat for a full minute as another really important distinction of the spell is that you don't get an additional triad ending the effect if you take any damage so if you do fear someone into a corner and they can't move anymore you can just keep on attacking them and they can't really do anything about it whereas most similar effects like this break or have a chance to break if they take damage however the big downside to the spell is the fact that a lot of creatures are just immune to the writing condition as if they weren't fear would be just an excellent spell to use on pretty much everything and then just attack it while they can't attack back unless they're one of those few creatures that has a bonus action that allows them to do something as a lot of monsters in the monster manuals don't actually have bonus action abilities and at number 3 we have haste this has gone to be one of the most overrated third level spells in the game because it feels super good to have the effect on you if you're a melee character what it does is it allows you to buff one target in order to grant them a multitude of extra effects until the duration ends where they get a plus two bonus to their ac they gain advantage on dexterity saving throws their speed is doubled and they gain an additional action on each of their turns which can only be used to perform one weapon attack a dash disengage a hide or use an object action so it kind of has all of these restrictions on what you can do with this extra action that way players can't use it or perform a multi attack and also so spell casters can't use it to double cast bounce however when the spell ends the target can't move or take actions until its next turn and since haste requires concentration if whoever casts the spell is hit too many times and accidentally drops it whoever they use it on will be out of combat for a turn so if you cast haste on a melee character it basically allows them to perform one extra weapon attack on each of their turns however the damage of having one extra weapon attack is usually a lot lower than just hitting a room full of enemies with fireball if we take the highest damage die weapon something like a greatsword with a 2d6 the average damage of the great sword is seven and the average damage of fireball hitting a single target is 28. so a creature with haste on them would have to hit four times with an extra attack before being able to equal the damage of a fireball hitting one target assuming no other modifiers in the weapon and this is kind of why the spell is overrated its actual damage potential is vastly underpowered compared to a lot of the other damaging spells however it does more than just grant extra damage it also provides double speed which is actually super good for maneuvering around the battlefield and could potentially allow the character to end behind cover on every turn which is great as a defensive capability plus a plus two bonus to their ac is death and discovered especially since it's basically permanent for the duration of the spell and can be stacked on top of something like a shield as well so if you're able to get the full benefits off of everything that haste provides then it's definitely a great spell to cast especially if you twin cast it onto two targets as a sorcerer although it does have a pretty gnarly downside if you end the concentration and if used as a pure damaging spell it's just not better than using fireball and at number 2 we have slow slow is an aoe which can affect up to 6 creatures of your choice within a 40 foot cube where each creature has a succeed of wisdom saving throw otherwise they get a negative effect which is kind of like the opposite of haste where they get a minus 2 penalty to their ac and dexterity saving throws they can't use any reactions and on their turn they can choose to perform an action or bonus action but not both and also regardless of its abilities or magic items they can't make more than one attack during its turn and additionally if the creature attempts to cast a spell under the effect they have to roll a d20 where if they roll in 11 or higher this spell doesn't actually take effect until the creature's next turn and the creature has to use his action on the next turn in order to complete the cast of that spell and creatures under the effect can make an additional wisdom saving throw at the end of each of their turns in order to end the effect early otherwise it lasts for a full minute or until you drop concentration now what's really good about slow is in the way you can cast it on an enemy group which does not affect your allies baseline pretty much all aoe spells you can cast at their level spell range affect all creatures within range regardless of their enemies or not since slow allows you to specifically choose up to 6 targets that means you can completely ignore any allies that might be within its radius and the negative effect it places on creatures makes them easier to hit makes it so they have 50 chance to take two turns to cast a spell makes them slower as it has their speeds and reduces them to only perform in one action and completely renders multi-attack features useless which is what most high-level creatures have so even though most creatures of the monster manual don't have a bonus action a lot of them do have the multi-attack feature which they can't really use because they're only allowed to perform one attack on their turn and since it just halves their speed if they're in an area of difficult terrain like a hunger of hadar or sleet storm they'll only be moving at one fourth of the normal speed because it does stack so while the negative effects of slow might not be as game changing as fear the fact that you can use it in the middle of a group that has both allies and enemies and only affects your enemies is a really big plus in its favor there are very few control spells are aoes that work this way so they're super valuable if they do have this benefit and at number one we have summon undead this is a spell from tasha's cauldron of everything and basically what it does is allow you to call forth one of three undead spirits to a space within 90 feet which then takes its turn immediately after you in the initiative count and obeys all of your commands without requiring any actions by you and of the three undead you're able to summon with the spell pretty much all three of them are good and in most combat encounters in addition to all the undead's having immunity to necrotic and poison damage plus immunity to a couple of other conditions the way they differ is that the ghost is able to fly and move through objects plus anything he hits with his attack has to succeed to the wisdom saving throw otherwise they become frightened of the ghost until the end of their next turn the putrid has an aoe poison effect where any creature that starts to turn within five feet of the spirit has to succeed a constitution saving throw against your spell save dc otherwise get poisoned until the start of their next turn and the putrids melee attack rotting claw has the effect where if the target is attacking is poisoned then they have to succeed a constitution saving throw against her spell save dc or else be paralyzed until the end of its next turn and the paralyzed condition is nasty where all attack rolls against the target have advantage and if an attack hits a creature that's paralyzed within 5 feet of them the attack is a critical hit automatically although this does require a target to fail two constitution saving throws which are usually on the high end when it comes to creatures from the monster manual and the last one is the skeleton who doesn't have any extra effects except it's the only one that has a ranged attack where it can attack things at a range of 150 feet and deals slightly more damage than the other two spirits at 2d 4 plus 3 when casts at third level so if you summon the ghost you can have it move through walls in order to position itself to frighten things or go after flying targets if you summon the putrid you can summon the middle of an enemy group in order to try to poison them and then maybe paralyze one of them or you can just some of the skeleton hanging out next to you and you can just spam its grave bolts almost like having your own miniature warlock and if you cast someone undead at fourth level then all of the three creatures gain the ability to attack twice on each other turns and it's kind of better to just up cast someone undead than use any of the fourth level summon spells summon undead is an excellent new spell that was added to the game and was good enough to almost make it into the actual top 10 of third level spells but since it was rather new when i made that first video i kind of underrated it a little bit which means it easily takes number one spot in the part two of the video instead alright and that's the list if you know of any other third level spells that should have been in the original two videos or have any ideas for future videos just like this one maybe a part two of some other video i've made i'd love to hear about it down in the comments

Channel: TheD&DLogs

Views: 32,636

Keywords: D&D, Dungeons and Dragon, s Dungeon & Dragons, D&D Beyond, DnD, Wizards of the Coast D&D, Heroes Campaign RPG, tabletop, gaming, roleplaying, rule, rules, d20, d12, d10, d8, d6, d4, DM, PC, tips, tricks, advice, guide, dice, book, PHB, VGTM, dungeons and dragons, 5th edition, best, overpower

Id: fF3tQtk8-AQ

Length: 22min 26sec (1346 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 22 2022