D&D Best Sorcerer Spells For Every Level

D&D Best Sorcerer Spells
By
Shayna Robbins
Updated:
12 Jul 2020

You’ve chosen your class and donned your armor, now it is time to select the spells that will set you apart from other members of your party, elevating you all to greatness as you triumph over the challenges set forth by your Dungeon Master. Or maybe, you just have a quick one-off you are running that you need a sorcerer build for. Either way, the list below is the best of the best of Sorcerer spells at every level. 

Best Sorcerer Cantrips

Best Spell: Blade Ward

  • Gives you resistance against melee damage dealt with a weapon for one round
  • Casting time: 1 Action
  • Range: Self
  • Components: Verbal and Somatic

What Makes Blade Ward Great:

  • Offers protection
  • Can be cast as a bonus action if you use the Quickened metamagic option
  • Because this is a cantrip, you can cast this along with another spell if you change its casting time to a bonus action

Second Best Spell: Mage Hand

  • An extra hand that can lift ten pounds, wield tools, and obey your commands for up to one minute
  • Casting time: 1 Action
  • Range: 30 feet
  • Components: Verbal and Somatic

What Makes Mage Hand Great:

  • Will help free you from the darkest of dungeons, by unlocking locks, tripping traps, creating diversions, or helping you in combat
  • If you pair this with the Telekinetic UA material, your mage hand becomes invisible and can push people around for you
  • Once cast, you can control the mage hand on bonus actions, freeing you up for other things, like slaying dragons

Best Level 1 Sorcerer Spells

Best: Shield 

  • A +5 bump to your Armor Class as a reaction that lasts until the start of your next turn
  • Casting time: 1 Reaction
  • Range: Self
  • Components: Verbal and Somatic

What Makes Shield Great:

  • Protects you from all damage from Magic Missile 
  • As a sorcerer, you will typically have lower hit points because of your hit die being a d6 so any boost to your AC is imperative to survival

Second Best:  Magic Missile 

  • Magical darts that deal 1d4+1 force damage to your opponent no matter what their armor class is
  • Casting time: 1 Action
  • Range: 120 Feet
  • Components: Verbal and Somatic

What Makes Magic Missile Great:

  • Unless the thing you attack reacts by casting the Shield spell, it will take magical force damage instantaneously, without an attack roll or a saving throw
  • Can be cast at any level, increasing in strength as it grows by adding more darts per level
  • All darts are autonomous and you can direct them to hit multiple objects or creatures

Best Level 2 Sorcerer Spells

Best:  Invisibility

  • Renders a creature invisible for up to an hour if concentration is maintained
  • Casting time: 1 Action
  • Range: Touch
  • Components: Verbal, Somatic, and Material (an eyelash encased in gum arabic)

What Makes Invisibility Great:

  • Being invisible gives attacks against you disadvantage
  • Not being seen gives you advantage on attacks against others
  • Invisibility is fantastic for things other than combat, like sneaking around in a dungeon, walking through a crowd to pickpocket, or pranking unsuspecting patrons of a frequented tavern

Second best: Mirror Image

  • Multiply yourself by four by adding three new projections of you to the battle mat
  • Casting time: 1 Action
  • Range: 1 Minute
  • Components: Verbal and Somatic

What Makes Mirror Image Great:

  • Having duplicates of yourself is extremely confusing to your opponents
  • You can have each of your duplicates take one attack for you in battle if you roll high enough 
  • This spell does not require concentration to keep active

Best Level 3 Sorcerer Spells

Best:  Haste

  • Give yourself or a willing creature an extra attack, a +2 bonus to armor class, doubled speed, and advantage on Dexterity saving throws for one minute
  • Casting time: 1 Action
  • Range: 30 Feet
  • Components: Verbal, Somatic, and Material (a shaving of licorice root)

What Makes Haste Great:

  • Increases AC by 2 for the duration
  • Grants extra melee attack
  • Gives advantage on Dexterity saving throws
  • Doubles speed for the duration
  • Even though you cannot take an action for on turn after haste ends, you can still use your reaction to cast reaction spells to protect yourself from attacks

Second best: Counterspell

  • Send your opponents a cease and desist by negating their spell with your counterspell
  • Casting time:  1 Reaction
  • Range: 60 feet
  • Components: Somatic

What Makes Counterspell Great:

  • Automatically works on spells of the same level or lower
  • You can attempt to counterspell higher level spells 
  • You cast this spell as a reaction, at long range, which means you can protect your friends from sixty feet away

Best Level 4 Sorcerer Spells

Best:  Dimension Door

  • Teleport yourself and another creature up to 500 feet in any direction
  • Casting time: 1 Action
  • Range: 500 feet
  • Components: Verbal

What Makes Dimension Door Great:

  • Being able to blink out to a desired location 500 feet away is a nice feature when you’re running from a monster
  • Everything is better if you can bring a friend
  • This can be a fun utility outside of combat at your DMs discretion

Second best: Blight

  • Necrotic energy drains the moisture and life from a creature of your choice, dealing 8d8 necrotic damage on a failed Constitution saving throw
  • Casting time: 1 Action
  • Range: 30 feet
  • Components: Verbal and Somatic

What Makes Blight Great:

  • Sucking the life out of the party is great when it’s the opponents’ party
  • If you are up against a magical plant or plant-based creature, they are at disadvantage on saving throws against the attack and they take maximum damage 
  • This spell can be manipulated with metamagic options to make for some very powerful additional damage potential
  • You can wither regular plants instantly
  • Increase the maximum damage by casting this at higher levels

Best Level 5 Sorcerer Spells

Best:   Telekinesis

  • Move things, or creatures, with your mind
  • Casting time: 1 Action
  • Range: 60 feet
  • Components: Verbal and Somatic

What Makes Telekinesis Great:

  • Trick a giant into thinking you have giant ancestry by using Telekinesis to show your strength as you can lift and move objects up to half a ton
  • Transport you and your friends across a turbulent river atop a recently chopped tree
  • Move a huge creature against its will if they fail a strength check up to 30 feet in any direction
  • Great for crossover characters like Professor X, Phoenix, or Eleven

Second best: Far Step

  • Once you cast this you can teleport up to 60 feet to an unoccupied location that you can see on each of your turns
  • Casting time: 1 Bonus Action
  • Range: Self
  • Components: Verbal 

What Makes Far Step Great:

  • You can change your location on every turn without using your movement allowing you to stay out of melee or chase down fleeing opponents
  • Lasts for a minute and can be used again as a bonus action on your next turns until the spell ends

Best Level 6 Sorcerer Spells

Best: Chain Lightning

  • A lightning bolt erupts and hits a target of your choice, then breaks off and creates three separate additional arcs that attack three separate and additional targets
  • Casting time: 1 Action
  • Range: 150 feet
  • Components: Verbal, Somatic, and Material (a bit of fur; a piece of amber, glass, or crystal, and three silver pins)

What Makes Chain Lightning Great:

  • The potential max damage of this spell is 80 lightning damage on a failed Dexterity saving throw which would nearly kill anything of a challenge rating under 5 in one hit
  • If you choose the Storm Sorcerer subclass, you will deal extra lightning damage to anyone within ten feet of you when you cast this spell
  • This spell’s range is so great that you can be safely away from harm when you cast it
  • The additional arcs’ ranges do not have to be within 150 feet of you, only within 30 feet of another target you hit with the lightning

Second best: Globe of Invulnerability

  • A barrier surrounds the spot you cast it in and protects you against spell effects for up to one minute
  • Casting time: 1 Action
  • Range: Self (10ft radius Sphere)
  • Components: Verbal, Somatic, and Material (a glass or crystal bead that shatters after it is used)

What Makes Globe of Invulnerability Great:

  • Mages tend to be weaker, so any form of protection against spells that deal huge magical damage is an essential utility
  • This automatically protects you against level 5 spells and weaker, even if those spells are cast at higher levels, basically the DND form of camping, which everyone knows is a legitimate strategy
  • The globe gets more powerful the higher the level you cast it at, blocking spells at one level less than the level it is cast at

Best Level 7 Sorcerer Spells

Best: Finger of Death

  • This is a direct hit of necrotic damage that can deal a maximum of 7d8+30 damage on a failed save, with a zombie twist! Any humanoid you kill with this spell reanimates as your zombified familiar.
  • Casting time: 1 Action
  • Range: 60 feet
  • Components: Verbal and Somatic

What Makes Finger of Death Great:

  • Pet Zombie
  • Huge damage potential
  • No component requirements means you can cast this once per long rest without restocking your supplies, meaning if you and your DM work it out, you could have an entourage of zombies

Second best: Teleport

  • This spell allows you to beam you and 8 other willing creatures, or one single object to safety in the blink of an eye. 
  • Casting time: 1 Action
  • Range: 10 feet
  • Components: Verbal

What Makes Teleport Great:

  • There is no better way to protect your entire party from immediate death than to instantaneously teleport them away to a “permanent circle” or perhaps a lair that you’ve already established
  • This can be a fun way to play up the chance aspect of your game if your DM is ready to roll the outcome of emergency teleportations (see the table in the player handbook)
  • As long as the object fits within a ten-foot cube, you can teleport it to your permanent circle, making looting fun AND easy

Best Level 8 Sorcerer Spells

Best: Dominate Monster

  • If a monster you target with this spell fails a Wisdom saving throw, it becomes charmed by you for the duration. Once charmed, you can issue commands to it that it will obey to the best of their capability. 
  • Casting time: 1 Action
  • Range: 60 feet
  • Components: Verbal and Somatic

What Makes Dominate Monster Great:

  • Not all monsters are wise, so even though monsters you are engaged with have advantage on their Wisdom saving throws against this spell’s effects, you have a good chance of dominating one mid-combat and bringing it over to your side of the fray
  • This can be used on all monsters of any size
  • If you cast this spell at the 9th level, the duration increases to 8 hours
  • The How To Train Your Dragon potential is here, folks

Second best: Earthquake

  • Choose an epicenter within 500 feet of you and cause an earthquake with a 100-foot radius area effect that trembles and causes damage to creatures and buildings for up to 1 minute
  • Casting time: 1 Action
  • Range: 500 feet
  • Components: Verbal, Somatic, Material (a pinch of dirt, a piece of rock, and a lump of clay)

What Makes Earthquake Great:

  • The ground in the 200-foot diameter of the spell’s effect becomes difficult terrain, halving the movement of your foes
  • Your spell causes 1d6 fissures to swallow up those who fail a dexterity saving throw
  • Structures caught in the shake zone are dealt 50 bludgeoning damage when you cast the spell and then again at the start of each of your turns for the spell’s duration

Best Level 9 Sorcerer Spells

Best: Gate

  • You create a portal between 5 and 20 feet in diameter that persists for up to one minute
  • Casting time: 1 Action
  • Range: 60 feet
  • Components: Verbal, Somatic, and Material (a diamond worth at least 5000gp)

What Makes Gate Great:

  • This portal can link to any plane of existence you choose, so a great way to change the scenery or escape a conflict
  • Anything can travel through this portal while it is up
  • You can attempt to summon a creature (controlled by the DM) from another plane and have the portal draw it to you

Second best: Mass Polymorph

  • Casting this allows you to change the appearance of up to ten creatures to a creature of your choice with a challenge rating equal to or less than half of their level
  • Casting time: 1 Action
  • Range: 120 feet
  • Components: Verbal, Somatic, Material (a caterpillar cocoon)

What Makes Mass Polymorph Great:

  • Whatever creature you polymorph gains temporary hit points equal to that of the creature you chose to turn them into
  • By the time you can cast this spell, you are a level 17 sorcerer, which means you could turn yourself and 10 other level 17 creatures into a band of young green dragons if your heart desired
  • Deceit, disguise, and power are the pillars of sorcery and this spell is the quintessential mash-up of those concepts

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Shayna Robbins
Shayna hails from the controversial lands of Texas, where she dabbles in herding cats. She is a bard by night and performs countless administratively heroic acts by day, a true warrior in the realm.
Gamer Since:
1995
Favorite Genre:
RPG
Currently Playing:
Dungeons and Dragons, Dominion, Clash of Clans, Plague Inc.
Top 3 Favorite Games:
Fallout 4, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Deadpool