Dungeons & Dragons Spells It’s Better To Just Ignore

A spellcaster in Dungeons & Dragons needs to choose their spell slots carefully, as the right spell can turn the tide of battle or solve a mystery plaguing the party. Luckily, some D&D spells can safely be ignored in favor of greater spells, as they’re far too situational to be of use in most games.

The spellcaster classes in D&D have different levels of access to magic. Clerics and Druids have access to their entire spell lists when preparing an allotment of slots for the day, while poor Sorcerers and Warlocks only have access to a small pool at any time. The one thing they all have in common is that they can only cast a small number of spells per day – save for cantrips, which have unlimited uses.

While players can, of course, tailor their spells to the kind of campaign or adventure they are taking part in, it’s better to choose strong D&D spells that are likely to be useful in many situations. Especially when going into a session blind, this can prevent wasting precious slots on bad spells.

Useless D&D Spells – Dancing Lights & Light

Although cantrips don’t require spell slots to cast, players still only get to add a limited number of them to their spell library. The dancing lights and light cantrips are a tough sell for taking up one of these spots. They create magical light sources that can be conjured at any time, but many of the races in the Player’s Handbook possess Darkvision, leaving only humans, halflings, and dragonborn needing a light source. All classes also begin campaigns with light sources as part of their free starting gear, and torches only cost a copper piece each and last for an hour.

These cantrips might be useful in specific types of campaigns, such as ones where the party consists of races without Darkvision or where the group will be cut off from civilization for long periods of time. They could really come in handy in Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden, for example, as light sources would be hard to come by in the tundra; however, produce flame would be more effective, as that creates both light and heat.

Useless D&D Spells – Unseen Servant

Unseen servant creates an invisible servant that can perform basic tasks, such as cleaning a house and serving refreshments. It might be the first thing a Wizard would cast as soon as they got home from work, but it isn’t of much use when exploring or fighting enemies in a dungeon. The mage hand cantrip is far more useful, as it can perform more complex functions and doesn’t burn a spell slot.

Useless D&D Spells – Longstrider & Jump

Longstrider increases an ally’s movement speed by 10 feet for one hour, while jump triples their jumping distance for one minute. The longstrider spell doesn’t offer enough of a boost to justify taking up a first-level spell slot, especially when it’s competing with mage armor and shield. It might have been more useful in the older editions, but D&D‘s smaller races (halflings and gnomes) are now only 5 feet slower than the others. A character’s movement speed is also no longer affected by wearing heavy armor, so the extra two spaces of movement aren’t worth a slot.

The jump spell is even more limited, as it only lasts for a minute, only affects one creature per casting, and requires an action to use. These spells would be far better as cantrips, especially if longstrider‘s duration was lowered to match jump. These movement-affecting spells are too situational and short for most Dungeons & Dragons adventures, which is why they’re better off ignored.

About The Author

Scott Baird
(2509 Articles Published)

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Scott has been writing for Screen Rant since 2016 and regularly contributes to The Gamer. He has previously written articles and video scripts for websites like Cracked, Dorkly, Topless Robot, and TopTenz.
A graduate of Edge Hill University in the UK, Scott started out as a film student before moving into journalism. It turned out that wasting a childhood playing video games, reading comic books, and watching movies could be used for finding employment, regardless of what any career advisor might tell you. Scott specializes in gaming and has loved the medium since the early ‘90s when his first console was a ZX Spectrum that used to take 40 minutes to load a game from a tape cassette player to a black and white TV set. Scott now writes game reviews for Screen Rant and The Gamer, as well as news reports, opinion pieces, and game guides. He can be contacted on LinkedIn.

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