While the 2024 Player’s Handbook forDungeons & Dragonsadded a few new spells, it also made plenty of changes to existing spells. In most cases, it just adds more healing or damage, but in a few select spells, the effects are so different that it might as well be a new spell altogether.
We’ve chosen the spells most impacted by the changes in the 2024 Handbook; that way, you’re able to be better prepared for future campaigns. If you’re looking forchanges to cantrips, we’ve covered that in a different article since we are focusing here on spells level 1 or higher.
8Grease
No More Fiery Combos
While the 2014 rendition of the Grease spell didn’t specify that it was flammable, many players assumed so. It was such a popular belief that, in Baldur’s Gate 3, the spell is indeed flammable, making for interesting combos with any fire-based spells.
Well, that is no longer the case since the 2024 description of the spell starts by describing how nonflammable the summoned grease is. While still useful, you’ll have to cast other area spells to make your fiery combos since things like the Web spell still summon flammable surfaces.
7Wish
Be Wary Of The Lady Of Pain
If you just skim over the details of the Wish spell in the 2024 Player’s Handbook, you might fail to notice any changes. Well, there are two changes of note, one of them being that if your wish affects the multiverse, Sigil, or the Lady of Pain, the Lady herself intervenes and forces your Wish to fail.
The other addition is a new suggestion for how to use Wish when not duplicating an 8th level spell or lower. It’s called sudden learning, and it lets you replace any feats you have for new ones, as long as you qualify for them, essentially letting you replace all your featswith epic boonsonce you hit level 19.
6Giant Insect
You No Longer Need To Have A Bunch Of Bugs In Hand
A few spells that summon creatureshave been simplified, removing the need to have a long list of monster stat blocks for a single spell. Giant Insect was such a spell since you could turn certain insectoid creatures into their giant version, making it sometimes hard to balance or even roleplay.
Now, there is a specific Giant Insect stat block that changes slightly depending on the form chosen (centipede, spider, or wasp). This will make using the spell less cumbersome while also making it easier to justify the presence of the giant spider no matter where you summon it.
5Aura Of Vitality
Heal With A Free Action
Aura of Vitality was never a bad spell to begin with, but it was hard to justify using it during combat due to needing to use an action to summon the Aura, and a bonus action to then use it to heal someone. Unless you plan your build to always have a bonus action available, you might need to use that very action during the heat of battle, making the Aura pointless for that turn.
The 2024 Player’s Handbook made one simple change to this Aura: it is now a free action to heal someone with it, leaving you to take your turn as normal while still gaining the benefit of the healing. You still need to use an action to cast the Aura of Vitality, but it can nowbe combined with nearly any spellthat doesn’t require concentration.
4Conjure Animals
Standardized Like All Conjure Spells
The Conjure spells that summoned a creature have all changed in some way. Most of them don’t work as creatures anymore but as effects, making them easier to use but less open to experimentation, and the one that has been affected the most is Conjure Animals.
The other Conjure spells are Conjure Celestial, Conjure Fey, Conjure Elementals, Conjure Minor Elementals, and Conjure Woodland Beings.
What Conjure Animals allowed you to do was highly versatile, from giving your entire party temporary mounts to distracting enemies with a large pack of wolves. Now, you summon a pack of spectral beings that can’t be split and only function as a combat ability, unable to interact with the world beyond dealing damage.
3Ray Of Sickness
Nearly Guaranteed Poison
The change to Ray of Sickness is another one of those subtle yet meaningful ones. It does largely the same thing, but where before you had a chance to poison your target on a hit, it is now a guaranteed poison proc if you hit with the initial attack.
This makes Ray of Sickness a far more reliable way to give disadvantage to your foes, and you can even combine it with any other guaranteed effect. The putrid creature created by Summon Undead can paralyze targets it hits if they are poisoned, letting you stop low AC enemies on their tracks with a rather simple combo.
2Sleep
Forget About Hit Points
In essence, the Sleep spell still does what you want it to do, but the way it does it makes it feel like a fundamentally different spell. While before, you needed to keep track of the total hit points you could put to sleep, now the creatures in the affected area need to do two Wisdom saving throws or fall asleep; no hit point tracking is needed.
In a way, this is a nerf since you aren’t guaranteed to put the guards at the city gate to sleep and flawlessly sneak by. But it can also be a buff, since creatures with too many hit points to be affected by the previous version of the spell are now easy pickings, as long as their Wisdom isn’t too high.
1Counterspell
It Now Depends On A Saving Throw
Counterspell is one of the most powerful tools any party can have, letting them putthe dreaded Lich to shameby interrupting its most powerful abilities. The 2024 change makes it so it is no longer a guaranteed counter, but instead, the target can avoid the effect by passing a Constitution saving throw.
While casters often have low Constitution scores, the ones you want to counter often have something called legendary resistance, making them beat any saving throw they want without a roll. The spell remains a powerful tool at the early levels of a campaign, but for the final battles, you might need other ways to deal with the Lich’s Power Word Kill.
