Top 10 Radiant Damage Spells in DnD 5e

In this video, we will be going over some of the best spells that have the option to deal Radiant Damage of some kind, one of the better types of damage to deal since its very rarely resisted or immuned, and even helps turn off regeneration for certain creatures.

Video edited by BV, and Selty
Written by: Zephyr

--The List--
Intro: (0:00)
10. Guiding Bolt: (0:12)
9. Moonbeam: (1:12)
8. Spirit Shroud: (3:04)
7. Flame Strike: (5:27)
6. Sunbeam: (6:44)
5. Destructive Wave: (8:44)
4. Holy Weapon: (10:01)
3. Crown of Stars: (11:54)
2. Sickening Radiance: (13:34)
1. Spirit Guardians: (16:20)

--Social Media--

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Art Assets:

[geoffreyperrin]

Fun fact with Sunbeam. Most spells that persist and let you activate them while they do so either require your bonus action, let you use your action on a subsequent turn, or don't deal damage until the enemy starts/ends their turn in an area or moves there 1/turn.

Sunbeam, however, activates on your action, but doesn't say "on subsequent turns". When you combine that with the fact that the initial beam is part of the casting, that means if you cast the spell as a bonus action by quickening it, you can use your action to immediately use another beam. Thus, on round 1, a sorcerer can make 2 beams. Round 2 and beyond are as you say, where you can quicken spells like fireball and still get a beam.

[mauriciogoncalves]

The best thing about Guiding Bolt in Star Druids is that he can use it an amount of times equal to prof bonus, and THEN he can use slots. Even if it doesn't scale into high levels, I can just use it for free a number of times per day, which is great.

[AgentForest]

Another fun Sorcerer Sunbeam interaction: You can Quicken Sunbeam the turn you cast it to deal the initial damage with your bonus action, then use your main action to reactivate it, letting you burst out two beams the first round, making it a solid burst option that still gives reliable sustained damage afterward.

[AnoNYmous-bzef]

Funny thing about Sunbeam, you get to shoot twice the first turn if you quicken it.

[gmradio]

To the editor, Buhamat. Technically immune, but it fits. Also one of the few creatures you want to use poison damage on.

[yogiboi]

YOYOYO SICKENING RADIANCE!!! Combine with wall of force and have the most GODLY HOTBOX!

[odinulveson]

Greatly informative! BTW my take, Anti undead/ abberation party? Crystal ( for radiant breath )and Topaz ( for the necrotic resistance )dragonborns with cleric/paladin/ sorcerer draconic bloodline setup. Heck, dip into Ranger lvl 3 for drake warden, adding a ( kinda homebrewed, yet sems to be easly slot in ) Chromatic, Gem drake by your side for support 😁 the undead will shiver and you are decent vs nasty abberations too since Gems are adept at psychic stuff.

[AVA-huyf]

Spirit Shroud has a really powerful pairing with Fighters Action Surge if you take something like Fighter / Radiant Caster (cleric, divine soul, paladin etc). Because you can cast Spirit Shroud which adds 1d8 to every attack, and action surge to cast Scorching Ray twice which sends 3+ rays of fire at an enemy each counting as a separate attack and each doing 2d6 dmg now plus the 1d8 so in total 12d6 + 6d8 for one turn. If you have a spiritual weapon you can squeeze out even more damage on your bonus action too. Makes for a nice nova.

[kevindragon]

I actually ran a one-shot where one of my players grappled the BBEG in the Moonbeam to prevent him from escaping. The player character survived while the BBEG was reduced to a pile of ash.

[wwade]

A great combo for Tempest Clerics is to have an upcast Spirit Guardians and then use Destructive Wave. Add in the Spiritual Weapon for extra juice.

[minoketheinsertwittywordpl]

Not a bad list, except for the travesty that guiding bolt is on the opposite side of the list it should be. It’s maybe the second or third best single target spell at that level, scales decently into tier 2 and even low tier 3, and is on spell lists where most of the good spells are all concentration. Access to it is honestly a third of the reason to go into star druid, because of how starved that class is for good offensive non concentration spells. On the fact cantrips catch up in damage? That’s also just flat out wrong except for eldritch blast (which is basically a weapon rather than a cantrip) if you consider that it deserves 25% of the damage of whatever big follow up attack follows it up. Hitting a side enemy with a rogue means they don’t have to worry about an adjacent ally for example, and sharpshooter/great weapon master feat users will appreciate cancelling out the attack penalty.

[ANDELE]

Real order:
1. Guardians (always pick)
2. Shroud (part of the core of every gish and full caster nova)
3. Crown (late, could easily lose its position to bolt, but extremely efficient supplemental damage for non-metamagic or BA geared casters that id keep it here as leve 1 slots have other options and in T4 bolt is mostly replaced by cantrip use)
4. Bolt (D&D divine caster equivalent of what MST was in the early CyDra era of yugioh)
5. Microwave (any enemy with int of 15+ should understand that placing a box or block or other object blocks path of effect due to spell area rules, but good combo piece for early T3 enemies)

Rest dont matter much.

[reubenwallace-gibb]

A creature that resists cold, necrotic and radiant damage is (spoilers for Descent into Avernus):




















Zariel, Archduke of Avernus! She has resistance to radiant damage, immunity to necrotic damage and immunity or resistance to cold damage, depending on her equipment.

[AnonZeMouse]

Odd workaround, but Crossbow Expert can deal with the weakness you mentioned for Spirit Shroud as it specifies "ranged attack rolls" (On DnD beyond at least)

Still a big investment for a relatively niche use but it's there. Might be handy for a melee caster to get more spell options?

[adiksaff]

Me, a bard currently playing through Curse of Strahd: *Takes notes for Magical Secrets*

[zacharylona]

The Draconic Spirit stat block has all of the resistances to Spirit Shroud, but they don't overlap; gem is resistant to radiant and necrotic, whereas metallic and chromatic are resistant to cold.

I don't think there are any enemy monsters that have all three *resistances, * but to be semantic:

Zariel is resistant to cold and radiant, but immune to necrotic.

There are no other creatures above CR10 (which is where I looked) with resistance and/or immunity to all three damage types. I find it highly unlikely that something CR10 or lower would have it when a CR26 is the only one to have them all somewhere. I'm sure the DMG math on defensive CR backs me up on that.

Notably, plenty seemed to have two of them, especially fiends (demons and devils), undead, and oddly enough the "new" gem dragons from Fizban's Treasury of Dragons.

[rocker]

I'm playing a bard in Curse of Strahd, and I've been doing some mean things with moonbeam, just last session I had a sending intercepted by him, so I interrupted his response with another sending, calling him a bitch. About 30 minutes later he tried to fly in as a cloud of mist to sneak up on the party. Unfortunately for him my passive perception is super high, so once he was in range I dropped a moonbeam on him, he failed the save and was forced to turn back and fall out of the sky. And honestly I love playing a bard.

[LeavingNight]

I wonder where Divine Smite would end up if it counted as a spell?

[phillipheaton]

Crown of Stars can pair well with True Strike.

[BeaglzRok]

I wouldn't be so disappointed in Flame Strike if it weren't constantly put on expanded spell lists, often alongside Fireball, only making the comparison between the two inevitable when it never should have been. Which sucks, because it's the best it's been in all editions and stays pretty consistent with all of them, but it's still worse since Fireball doesn't have drawbacks it used to that might make someone prefer a controlled area like Flame Strike.
I'd honestly fix it by boosting the range to 120ft, the radius to 15ft, the height to 60ft (just so it beats Fireball in one dimension), and BOTH damage types scale by 1d6/level instead of just one, making it closer to Circle of Death. Might even get rid of the Radiant damage aspect entirely (even if the whole concept is that half of the Fire damage can't be resisted) and just say the whole 8d6 Fire damage ignores both damage resistance and immunity, and the damage cannot be reduced (so it gets around niche things like Iron Golem having both immunity and the Fire Absorption trait).