Top 20 Best 8th-Level Spells in D&D 5e [Ranked]

Upon reaching level 15, spellcasters can now start to unlock and use 8th-level spells.

8th-level spells are awkwardly placed as they can’t be better than 9th-level spells but have to be worth the wait to unlock at level 15.

These spells can be underwhelming, as 7th-level spells already broke the ice when looking at extreme spells, but that doesn’t mean 8th-level spells aren’t worth casting!

Best 8th-Level Spells 5e

20. Telepathy

Casting Time: 1 action

Range: Unlimited

Components: V, S, M (one pair of linked silver rings)

Duration: 24 hours

Telepathy is great across long distances where communication with another party member is required.

Create a telepathic link between you and a willing familiar creature, enabling communication while on the same plane.

You can instantly share sounds, images, words, and other sensory messages with the linked creature.

19. Power Word: Stun

Casting Time: 1 action

Range: 60 feet

Components: V, S

Duration: Instantaneous

A damaged creature affected by Power Word: Stun is an easy target for your damage dealers.

Target a creature, overwhelming its mind and leaving it stunned.

The creature is affected if it has 150 HP or fewer.

18. Mind Blank

Casting Time: 1 action

Range: Touch

Components: V, S

Duration: 24 hours

Mind Blank is a potent spell, especially against creatures like Mind Flayers!

Touch a willing creature, making it immune to Psychic damage and any effect that reads its thoughts or senses its emotions, including Divination spells and charms.

Mind Blank can even resist a Wish spell or similar power.

17. Feeblemind

Casting Time: 1 action

Range: 150 feet

Components: V, S, M (a handful of glass, crystal, clay, or mineral spheres)

Duration: Instantaneous

Creatures affected by Feeblemind can be regarded as a “lesser threat,” allowing players to ignore them and focus on other targets.

Attempt to shatter the personality and intellect of a creature, having it take 4d6 Psychic damage and forcing an Intelligence saving throw.

Failing the save turns the creature’s Charisma and Intelligence scores to 1, making it unable to use magical items, cast spells, communicate or understand language.

Note: Every 30 days, the creature can reroll its saving throw, and if it succeeds, the spell is broken.

16. Antipathy/Sympathy

Casting Time: 1 hour

Range: 60 feet

Components: V, S, M (either a drop of honey for the sympathy effect or a lump of alum that’s soaked in vinegar for the antipathy effect)

Duration: 10 days

If you want to bait enemies or imbue them with extreme fear, Antipathy/Sympathy is just for you.

You can repel or attract creatures no larger than a 200-foot cube or objects that are Huge or smaller.

The Antipathy effect makes creatures feel a strong compulsion to avoid the target and leave the area, while the Sympathy effect makes creatures want to approach the target.

15. Mighty Fortress

Casting Time: 1 minute

Range: 1 mile

Components: V, S, M (one diamond worth at least 500 GP, which the spell will consume)

Duration: Instantaneous

Mighty Fortress will make players feel like a king in their protected keep.

A fortress with an area of 120 feet on each side springs into existence. It has 4 turrets 30 feet high and 20 feet on each side, with walls connecting each turret stretching 80 feet long.

You also have a small keep filled with 100 servants and presenting a banquet to feed up to 100 people daily.

Note: Casting the fortress somewhere else or waiting 7 days makes it disappear without harming anything as it crumbles.

14. Maddening Darkness

Casting Time: 1 action

Range: 150 feet

Components: V, M (a drop of pitch which is mixed with a drop of mercury)

Duration: Concentration, up to 10 minutes

Unlike traditional Darkness, Maddening Darkness affects not only your sight but your psyche with frightening noises.

Make darkness fill a 60-foot-radius sphere that spreads around corners.

No darkvision, nonmagical light, or light created by spells lower than 8th level can illuminate this area.

A creature starting its turn in the darkness must also make a Wisdom saving throw, taking 8d8 Psychic damage on a fail and half if successful.

13. Clone

Casting Time: 1 hour

Range: Touch

Components: V, S, M (one diamond worth at least 1,000 GP and at least 1 cubic inch of flesh from the creature needing to be cloned, which the spell will consume. A vessel worth at least 2,000 GP with a sealable lid large enough to hold the creature, such as a huge coffin, mud-filled cyst in the ground, crystal container filled with salt water, or urn)

Duration: Instantaneous

Clone acts as an instant resurrection spell for the soul of the cloned player.

A clone protects against death, growing inside a vessel and maturing after 120 days. 

If you want, the clone can be made younger, leaving the clone statistically unchanged (might affect height).

After the clone matures and the original creature perishes, its soul leaves its corpse and transfers to the clone (if the soul is willing to return).

12. Demiplane

Casting Time: 1 action

Range: 60 feet

Components: S

Duration: 1 hour

The universe is filled with the demiplanes of powerful entities; now, you can create your own by casting Demiplane.

Create a shadowy door large enough to fit Medium creatures. The door leads to an empty demiplane room 30 feet in every dimension, made from stone or wood.

Casting this spell again connects to the previous demiplane, or you can create a new demiplane. You can even open the door to another entity’s demiplane if you know its contents and nature.

Note: Once the door disappears, creatures within the demiplane are stuck if they have no means of interplanar travel.

11. Antimagic Field

Casting Time: 1 action

Range: Self (10-foot-radius sphere)

Components: V, S, M (a pinch of iron filings or powdered iron)

Duration: Concentration, up to 1 hour

Powerful magic exists within the D&D universe, so being able to block it using Antimagic Field is extremely useful.

Become surrounded by a 10-foot-radius invisible sphere. The sphere covers the connection to the multiverse, meaning summoned creatures disappear, magic items become ordinary, and no spells can be cast.

Note: Magical effects and spells created by artifacts or deities cannot be suppressed.

10. Sunburst

Casting Time: 1 action

Range: 150 feet

Components: V, S, M (a piece of sunstone and a fire)

Duration: Instantaneous

Sunburst sends bright sunlight in all its glory to burn those who oppose you!

Sunlight radiates in a 60-foot radius, and each creature caught by the light is forced to make a Constitution saving throw.

If failed, a creature takes 12d6 Radiant damage and becomes blinded for 1 minute. Succeeding on the save means taking half the damage and not being blinded.

Note: Sunburst dispels all darkness in its radius if created by a spell.

9. Abi-Dalzim’s Horrid Wilting

Casting Time: 1 action

Range: 150 feet

Components: V, S, M (a bit of sponge)

Duration: Instantaneous

Targeting creatures with Abi-Dalzim’s Horrid Wilting draws their moisture and imbues creatures with severe damage.

Draw moisture in a 30-foot cube, forcing creatures to make Constitution saving throw. 

On a failed save, affected creatures take 10d8 Necrotic damage, or half if successful.

Note: The spell doesn’t affect undead and constructs.

8. Incendiary Cloud

Casting Time: 1 action

Range: 150 feet

Components: V, S

Duration: Concentration, up to 1 minute

The Incendiary Cloud is a nightmare of white smoke followed by embers burning as hot as day.

Create a 20-foot-radius cloud that spreads around corners and heavily obscures vision.

Upon its appearance, creatures within the cloud must make a Dexterity saving throw. Failing the save means taking 10d8 Fire damage while succeeding means taking only half that.

7. Holy Aura

Casting Time: 1 action

Range: Self

Components: V, S, M (a tiny reliquary that’s worth a minimum of 1,000 GP containing a sacred relic, like a piece of parchment from a religious text or scrap of cloth from a saint’s robe)

Duration: Concentration, up to 1 minute

A cleric imbuing players with Holy Aura provides them with powerful buffs.

You radiate divine light in a 30-foot radius, choosing creatures within range to shed dim light in a 5-foot radius, having advantage on all saving throws.

Other creatures will have disadvantage on attack rolls against those affected.

6. Dark Star

Casting Time: 1 action

Range: 150 feet

Components: V, S, M (a shard of onyx and one drop of the caster’s blood, which the spell will consume)

Duration: Concentration, up to 1 minute

Dark Star is often described as being a combination of the spells Silence (2nd-level), Darkness (2nd-level), and Maddening Darkness (8th-level), meaning it packs a punch.

Summon a sphere of gravitational force and magical darkness created on a point with a radius of up to 40 feet.

The area within the sphere is difficult terrain, and creatures need darkvision to see through it. No sound is made in the sphere, and spells with a Verbal component cannot be cast inside.

A creature entering the area for the first time or starting its turn there also takes 8d10 Force damage when failing a Constitution save.

5. Maze

Casting Time: 1 action

Range: 60 feet

Components: V, S

Duration: Concentration, up to 10 minutes

Maze is ideal for players looking to temporarily banish powerful enemies to deal with the weaker ones.

Banish a creature to a labyrinth demiplane, remaining there until it escapes or the duration finishes.

Attempting to escape uses an action, and it must make a DC 20 Intelligence check, escaping if successful.

Note: Minotaurs and Goristo demons automatically succeed in the check.

4. Glibness

Casting Time: 1 action

Range: Self

Components: V

Duration: 1 hour

Glibeness is an “actually, I don’t fail that spell check” ability.

Whenever you make a Charisma check, replace your rolled number with a 15 when the spell is.

It doesn’t matter what you say; magic determining if you are telling the truth will always indicate you are telling it.

3. Animal Shapes

Casting Time: 1 action

Range: 30 feet

Components: V, S

Duration: Concentration, up to 24 hours

While Animal Shapes might seem relatively underpowered at first, using it correctly can mean your party never dies.

Choose any number of willing creatures, transforming each target into a Large (or smaller) beast with a CR 4 or lower. 

A transformed creature has its statistics replaced with the chosen beast and only reverts to its original form upon dropping to 0 HP or dying.

Note: On subsequent turns, you can transform affected creatures into new forms.

2. Dominate Monster

Casting Time: 1 action

Range: 60 feet

Components: V, S

Duration: Concentration, up to 1 hour

Dominate Monster lets you gain an ally and decrease the number of enemies on the battlefield.

Attempt to charm a creature, forcing it to make a Wisdom saving throw (having advantage if your party is currently fighting it) or be charmed.

If charmed, you have a telepathic link with the creature, letting you give it commands. You can keep providing normal commands or take complete, precise control over the creature.

Note: If the target takes damage, it can reroll its Wisdom save, giving it a chance of freedom if it’s successful.

1. Illusory Dragon

Casting Time: 1 action

Range: 120 feet

Components: S

Duration: Concentration, up to 1 minute

Using Illusory Dragon can give enemies the impression that you have a “real” dragon fighting on your side.

Create a Huge shadowy dragon occupying space and looking just like a real dragon.

Enemies that see the dragon must make a Wisdom saving throw, becoming frightened for 1 minute on a fail.

You also choose between Poison, Necrotic, Lightning, Fire, Cold, or Acid damage, as you can have the dragon unleash a breath attack dealing 7d6 damage if the creatures affect fail their Intelligence saving throws.

Note: Creatures can discern the illusion. However, the dragon will remain, and they only gain advantage on saving throws against its breath attack.

Full List of 8th Level Spells in D&D 5e

Final Thoughts

8th-level spells have some awesome long-awaited combinations of spells. 

One example would be Dark Star, which is a combination of Silence (2nd-level), Darkness (2nd-level), and Maddening Darkness (8th-level).

Players at level 15 will understand their roles very well and usually pick spells directly linked to their roles so as not to miss these mighty spells.

You might also be interested in the following:

• Best Cantrips 5e
• Best 1st-Level Spells 5e
• Best 2nd-Level Spells 5e
• Best 3rd-Level Spells 5e
• Best 4th-Level Spells 5e
• Best 5th-Level Spells 5e
• Best 6th-Level Spells 5e
• Best 7th-Level Spells 5e
• Best 9th-Level Spells 5e