Complete Guide to Thunder Damage Spells in D&D 5e — Caverns & Creatures (2024)

Complete Guide to Thunder Damage Spells in D&D 5e

by Sam West, Twitter:@CrierKobold

Thunder and Lightning are two sides of a bolt; one is the electric heat coursing through an atmosphere that physically burns away flesh and bone, and the other is the sound it makes. Thunder damage is functionally sounds so loud it pops eardrums and knocks things back with the force of an explosion.

If you’re looking for some Thunder options to empower your next Tempests Domain Cleric or Storm Sorcerer, here, for your consideration, are all of the spells in the game that deal Thunder damage, sorted by level and by class!

Thunder Damage Spells by Level

The following spells can deal Thunder damage when cast. Each can only deal Thunder damage, deal Thunder damage randomly, or has the option to deal Thunder damage.

Always Deals Thunder Damage Spells by Level

The following spells always deal Thunder damage when they deal damage. They can also deal an additional damage type to qualify, such as Thunder and Lightning damage.

Thunder Damage Spells by Class

The following are in order of spell level per class encompassing any spell that can deal Thunder damage. Spells with parentheses following them are accessible through the specified subclass.

All Thunder Damage Spells Ranked Worst to Best

All Thunder damage spells aren’t created equally. For your consideration, here is my ranking for the worst to best Thunder-damaging spells in the game. Any spell that can deal Thunder damage is included in this ranking, even if only some versions of the cast deal that damage type.

These rankings aren’t ranking the total Thunder damage a spell is capable of dealing but how useful the spell will likely be on a character sheet. Let's dive in!

F Tier: Near Uncastable

• 15. Storm of Vengeance: 9th-level spells normally have splashy, exciting impacts on the game. Storm of Vengeance deals pitiful damage round after round. You start with 2d6 thunder round one, get a measly 1d6 acid damage round two, a few lighting bolts round 3 for 10d6 damage, and each round after that does pathetic quantities of damage. If you care primarily about thunder damage, a 1st level spell, Thunderwave, does more damage than this in the first round. OOF.

• You don’t even get the heavy obscurity until you’ve had it up for five rounds, so that can’t be the main reason you’re using it. Given the only other thing this joke of a spell does is less damage over three rounds than plenty of lower-level spells do instantaneously, I can’t rate this anything higher than an F.

• 14. Chaos Bolt: Chaos Bolt does less damage than it should and fails to meaningfully deliver on the promise of being a fun, chaotic effect. Most characters that take this are better off casting Chromatic Orb or any other 1st-level damaging spell than this.

• 13. Elemental Bane: While flavorful, Elemental Bane is a horrendous way to spend a spell slot. You need to be actively working with some other character who is routinely dealing thunder damage every round for this to start dealing damage, and more often than not, you’re getting pitiful damage numbers. The only exception is if you’re in a group that entirely does only thunder damage, in which case this might be better than some of the D-tier options above it, but you’re almost always going to be better off just casting a damaging spell over this. It certainly doesn’t help that Thunder isn’t going to be a particularly common type among your other party members.

D Tier: Most Sheets Don’t Want These

• 12. Destructive Wave: 10d6 damage for a 5th-level spell isn’t a great rate for 9th level characters. At 17th level, getting a close-range exclusive, action-costed 4th-level Fireball is a joke, and that’s exactly what paladins get with this. On melee ranged Bards that pick this up through magical secrets, it's a side-grade to another reliable area of effect damage spells, but most of the time this is going to be a reminder of just how far behind full-casters the half-casters are.

• 11. Glyph of Warding: Glyph of Warding is a novel effect, but the reality of most D&D games is defensive spells you have to palace somewhere and get an enemy to trigger it are incredibly difficult to use. Adventurers are aggressors; you’re going to be pushing into spaces far more often than holding one.

  The main practical benefit of it is using it to abuse duplicating Concentration effects that are 3rd level or lower for 200 gold per cast. If you want an hour-long spell cast to get a bonus hour-long concentration spell like a second Summon Beast or Shadowspawn, this can work, but most tables aren’t going to find that this fits their adventuring schedule.

• 10. Thunderclap: 1d6 in an area around you for your action is tricky to get value out of in the low tiers, and while it kind of scales better than most other cantrips, there aren’t a lot of sheets that are going to regularly want to both be on top of enemies and using this instead of taking the Attack action. Most of the time, this is going to be worse than the rest of the cantrip damage options.

• 9. Thunderous Smite: Thunderous Smite compares poorly to the Divine Smite feature, which is its cardinal sin. 2d6 is less damage, it requires a bonus action to use, doesn’t always happen on your next attack should you miss, and prevents other concentration effects from being up. It isn’t unusable, as the prone condition on a martial multi-attacking character can be worth the damage drop, but I’m almost always going to rather have something that empowers my character in a consistent and different way than Divine Smite.

C Tier: Have a Home on Some Characters

• 8. Chromatic Orb: 3d8 damage for a 1st level slot is entirely fine. Chromatic Orb is the floor of 1st level damage spells; anything less than this and it’s not getting onto my characters, especially if I’m mainly looking for a specific kind of damage to fulfill a role in creating an elementalist or other damage-type fantasy. There are better damage options like Magic Missile available to you, and they’re better by a lot, because they can’t miss, but plenty of characters in the low tiers can make great use of this.

• 7. Booming Blade: Booming Blade is a weird little cantrip that’s mostly notable because it is a weapon attack used as a cantrip, meaning options that can cast cantrips in unique ways, like in place of an attack or as a bonus action, can leverage this to instead get an attack roll with a bit of upside. Bladesingers are an easy example of this. Additionally, Rogues aren’t typically making multiple attacks per turn, meaning this can be a nearly strictly better way to make an attack roll, as you get a little bit of potential damage upside if you can get a creature to want to move and pop the secondary damage. I still don’t think many characters want this, especially with Green-Flame Blade getting some easier bonus damage with similar attack uses, but it can be entirely fine on skirmishers making one attack a round or casting cantrips in odd ways.

• 6. Thunderwave: I’ve never been impressed with Thunderwave, and I see it cast a lot. The vast majority of the time, it acts as a 2d8 version of Burning Hands, and for that purpose in the low tiers, it's fine. Occasionally the push acts as a disengage, and rarely will actually gets enemies into spaces they don’t want to be like a Wall of Fire or off a cliff. Those little upsides aren’t worth much to me, but with a floor as fine as 10 ft. cube of 2d8 damage, it will perform well enough.

• 5. Elemental Weapon: It's hard for me to say this is fine for some characters, namely because Hunter’s Mark and Hex both exist and do most of what Elemental Weapon is doing, but better in terms of dice size. +1 to hit, though, alongside making your weapon magical, makes this a massive upgrade from the mundane Magic Weapon, leaving it as something I still don’t want to have to cast, but it does improve your damage and hit modifiers meaningfully. Plus, with how few ways exist to deal Thunder damage, Elemental Weapon can be one of the few consistent sources to consider.

• 4. Shatter: If there were better, or at least more consistent, ways to engage with object destruction, I think I’d have higher opinions of Shatter. Where it stands, I find Shatter is just the area of effect damage spell. It hits a fine area for its level with reasonable enough damage. It’s not something new or exciting, nor something that much more impactful than an Ice Knife, but a small upgrade that Bards specifically are eager to get onto their sheet, as they lack other area damage options.

B Tier: Solid Options on Many Characters

• 3. Thunder Step: I’m a sucker for long-distance teleportation effects; Thunder Step gives you a tool primarily for disengaging with style. 3d10 damage averages 16 damage per creature, which is kind of like half a Fireball. That paired with a 90 ft. teleport can set you up to be at the best tactical position for you on that turn, and in a pinch, bring a buddy. Out of combat, it's still a 90 ft. teleport, and while loud, can get you into and out of tricky spaces. I don’t know if the disengage bonus text makes me excited enough to put this over Misty Step or Dimension Door, but it definitely gets to be a part of the conversation.

A Tier: Excellent Spells for Anyone

• 2. Summon Draconic Spirit: Summon Draconic Spirit, by a huge margin, is the best method for dealing Thunder damage round to round in the game. For an action and your concentration, you can get a dragon with multi-attack and a cone breath of thunder damage it can use every round at no further costs to you. It’s large, so you can fly around on it if that’s what your heart wants, and it has enough hit points and AC to be a massive threat on its own.

• 1. Absorb Elements: Absorb Elements is cheap to cast, using only a reaction and a 1st level slot, is on a ton of spell lists, and reduces incoming damage substantially. The bonus elemental damage you then deal on hit is gravy; the main use case of this is helping you survive enemy Shatter and Fireballs. Any character that can put Absorb Elements on their sheet, especially those past 5th level, will benefit from having it.

Best Classes for Thunder Damage Spells

• 9. Ranger: Absorb Elements is excellent, but it isn’t great at actually dealing specifically Thunder damage. Elemental Weapon is basically all it has left, and neither of these sets up Ranger to actually excel at dealing Thunder damage in the ways the other classes can.

• 8. Paladin: Paladins have two unique options: Thunderous Smite and Destructive Wrath. I don’t have anything particularly kind to say about those spells, but they aren’t completely unusable. That’s something!

• 7. Cleric: Outside of Tempest Domain, Cleric gets Glyph of Warding as their only form of consistent non-weapon Thunder damage. Forge getting Elemental Weapon doesn’t save this class from clearly having the worst access to spells. If you want to do Thunder damage in Cleric, Tempest definitely is your best option, but still is at parity or worse off than the other classes remaining. It certainly is better than Ranger and Paladin though!

• 6. Artificer: Artilliersits and Armorers get Shatter and Thunderwave, two of the best options you can get to deal Thunder damage. They also have access to the Thunder damaging cantrips as well; what holds them back from a higher ranking is their spell slot access. Half-casting hamstrings the class when stacked up against any of the remaining classes with similar or better spell access.

• 5. Bard: Artificers, especially Artillerists and Battlesmiths, have a better spell list on average, but being a full-caster with Thunderwave and Shatter slides Bard just above them. Plus, there is something inherently awesome about a bard whose music blows out enemies' eardrums.

• 4. Warlock: All Warlocks get Shatter and Thunderstep, and a handful also get Thunderwave. That’s more than Bard, even with Pact Magic. All of these are fine enough to up-cast in a pinch, and short-rest recharges on them with so many subclasses offering additional ways to deal Thunder damage I think sets them up better than Bard to consistently get this damage type out.

• 3. Druid: Druid is the first of the three classes that get Summon Draconic Spirit, which is by far the best method to get round-to-round Thunder damage. They may lack Shatter, but Thunderwave and Thunderclap are two other ways to get Thunder damage earlier. They aren’t perfect, but definitely do a great job in the mid-tiers plus when it comes to blasting foes with cones of sound.

• 2. Wizard: Wizards and Sorcerers lists are incredibly close, but all of the most important pieces are on both: Summon Draconic Spirit, Shatter, Thunderwave, Thunder Step, and Absorb Elements. This list easily establishes these two classes as the top two, but one thing sets Sorcerer above Wizard.

• 1. Sorcerer: Sorcerers get Metamagic. That enables them to do slightly more with the Thunder damage spells than their Wizard counterparts, despite the lists looking close to identical. Sure, they get a stinker in Chaos Bolt, but they can also Heightened Spell Shatter, or Quicken Spell a Thunderclap to clap twice in the same turn for 4d6 potential damage around you for a single sorcery point, no spells spent, at 5th level. There are a bunch of little boosts Metamagic gives that sets up these spells to perform better on Sorcerer than Wizard, and so it gets a higher spot!

Crank It Up to 11 With These Thunder Spells

While they aren’t particularly numerous, there are some entirely fine thunder spells to enhance your character sheet. With them, you can go out to your game and prepare to Shatter some glass and knock back oncoming foes with the raw power of sound!

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