Spells that don't rely on casting stat

[Teaguethebean]

Blade ward, Booming blade, Control flames, Dancing lights, Druid craft, Encode thoughts, Encode thoughts, Friends, Guidance, Light, Mage hand, Mending, Message, Mold earth, Prestidigitation, Resistance, Shape water, Spare the dying, Thaumaturgy, True strike
Absorb elements, Alarm, Arcane weapon, Armor of Agathys, Beast bond, Bless, Ceremony, Color spray, Comprehend languages, Create destroy water, Detect evil and good, Detect magic, Detect poison and disease, Disguise self, Divine favor, Expeditious retreat, Feather fall, Find familiar, Fog cloud, Good berry, Hex, Hunters mark, Identify, Illusory script, Jump, Longstrider, Mage armor, Magic missile, Protection from evil and good, Purify food and drink, Sanctuary, Shield, Shield of Faith, Silent image, Sleep, Speak with animals, Tenser's floating disk, Unseen servant, Zephyr strike
Aid, Alter self, Animal messenger, Arcane lock, Arcanist's magic aura, Augury, Bark skin, Beast sense, Blur, Branding smite, Cloud of daggers, Continual flame, Darkness, Dark vision, Enhance ability, Find steed, Find traps, Gentle repose, Healing spirit, Invisibility, Knock, Lesser restoration, Locate animals or plants, Locate object, Magic mouth, Magic weapon, Mirror image, Misty step, Nystal's magic Aura, Pass without trace, Protection from poison, Rope trick, See invisibility, Shadow blade, Silence, Sky write, Spider climb, Spike growth, Warding bond, Warding wind
Animate dead, Aura of vitality, Beacon of hope, Blink, Cat nap, Clairvoyance, Conjure animals, Create food and water, Crusaders mantle, Daylight, Elemental weapon,Feign death, Flame arrows, Fly, Gaseous form, Haste, Leomund's tiny hut, Life transference, Meld into stone, Non detection, Phantom steed, Plant growth, Protection from energy, Remove curse, Revivify, Sending, Speak with dead, Speak with plants, Tiny servant, Tongues, Wall of sand, Wall of water, Water breathing, Water walk
Arcane eye, Aura of life, Aura of purity, Conjure minor elementals, Conjure woodland beings, Control water, Death ward, Dimension door, Divination, Fabricate, Find greater steed, Freedom of movement, Giant insect, Greater invisibility, Guardian of faith, Guardian of nature, Leomund's secret chest, Locate creature, Mordenkainen's private sanctum, Shadow of moil, Stone shape, Stone skin
Animate objects, Anitlife shell, Awaken, Bigby's hand, Circle of power, Commune, Commune with nature, Conjure elemental, Contact other plane, Creation, Danse macabre, Far step, Greater restoration, Hallow, Infernal calling, Legend lore, Mislead, Pass wall, Raise dead, Rary's telepathic bond, Reincarnate, Scrying, Skill empowerment, Swift quiver, Telekinesis, Teleportation circle, Tree stride, Wall of force
Arcane gate, Conjure fey, Contingency, Create homonculus, Create undead, Drawmij's instant summons, Find the path, Forbiddence, Globe of Invulnerability, Heal, Heroes' feast, Move earth, Planar ally, Primordial ward, Soul cage, Tenser's transformation, Transport via plants, True seeing, Wind walk, Word of Recall
Conjure celestial, Etherealness, Magnificent mansion, Mirage arcane, Plane shift, Regenerate, Resurrection, Sequester, Simulacrum, Teleport
Animal shapes, Anti magic field, Clone, Demiplane, Glibness, Maze, Mighty fortress, Mind blank, Telepathy
Astral Projection, Foresight, Gate, Invulnerability, Mass Heal, Power word heal, Power word Kill, Shape change, Time stop, True Resurrection

For a while I have been intrested in how a caster would work with a low casting score so I compiled every single spell that doesn't go off of the users casting stat and I feel like the 2 classes that would fair the best with low scores are Druid and Cleric though I do feel that so few spells prepared would be rough. Tell me what you think, and did I leave any out on accident?

[Mercurias]

Looks like a good list to me.

I could see someone making a pretty vicious multiclass using this list for Summoning creatures on concentration, then spamming undead reanimating spells.

[OverLordOcelot]

I think the list is a bit narrow - there are spells that let enemies save against part of the spell, or where the save for half doesn't really matter. For example, Wall of Stone doesn't allow a save against it's regular use of blocking movement, it only allows a save if you try to encircle someone in it completely. Similarly wall of fire allows a save for half, but often you're going to cast it with the intent to force the enemy to move or to kill/block weak reinforcements, where the half damage is irrelevant. Moonbeam does radiant damage and forces shapechangers to their real form. Against vampires, you don't really care whether they make the save or not, what you care about is that a single point of radiant damage shuts off their regeneration, and being in the beam stops them from turning into gaseous form to escape both voluntarily and if they're dropped to zero HP. So if you're using it primarily as a damage spell, then the 'save for half' means it's ability dependent, but if you're fighting vampires then you care much more about getting a single point of damage and the non-damage effects, so you don't care about the score.

This is really good to remember for moon druids, because they often want to get melee feats or concentration feats rather than boost wisdom at lower levels.

[DwarfDM]

Also usefull for the arcane trickster. I am definetly going to use this.

Thanks

[DarkKnightJin]

I think the list is a bit narrow - there are spells that let enemies save against part of the spell, or where the save for half doesn't really matter. For example, Wall of Stone doesn't allow a save against it's regular use of blocking movement, it only allows a save if you try to encircle someone in it completely. Similarly wall of fire allows a save for half, but often you're going to cast it with the intent to force the enemy to move or to kill/block weak reinforcements, where the half damage is irrelevant. Moonbeam does radiant damage and forces shapechangers to their real form. Against vampires, you don't really care whether they make the save or not, what you care about is that a single point of radiant damage shuts off their regeneration, and being in the beam stops them from turning into gaseous form to escape both voluntarily and if they're dropped to zero HP. So if you're using it primarily as a damage spell, then the 'save for half' means it's ability dependent, but if you're fighting vampires then you care much more about getting a single point of damage and the non-damage effects, so you don't care about the score.

This is really good to remember for moon druids, because they often want to get melee feats or concentration feats rather than boost wisdom at lower levels.

I never thought about Moonbeam being a good anti-Vampire spell. My Ancients Paladin should keep this property in mind.

[Chronos]

Another one that depends on casting stat but where you don't really care is Healing Word. In most cases, 1 point of healing and 1d4+mod points of healing have the same effect: The guy who was at 0 is now on his feet again, but will go back down if he takes another hit.

And for most illusions, casting stat only matters if someone spends an action to investigate it. Make it believable enough, and nobody's ever going to bother.

[Teaguethebean]

Alot of illusion spells I was considering putting in the list but there is the Investigation check so I had to remove them from the list

[napoleon_in_rag]

Off the top of my head, you are missing "Green Flame Blade" as a Cantrip.

[strangebloke]

Off the top of my head, you are missing "Green Flame Blade" as a Cantrip.

There's a lot of spells that have a secondary effect that is effected by casting stat.

Another example would be heat metal. Technically the CON save is only to avoid dropping the weapon. The damage and the disadvantage is automatic.

[OverLordOcelot]

There's a lot of spells that have a secondary effect that is effected by casting stat.

Another example would be heat metal. Technically the CON save is only to avoid dropping the weapon. The damage and the disadvantage is automatic.

Yeah, heat metal is another one that's not actually stat dependent. Same with healing word and cure wounds, they get a small bonus from your casting stat but their main effect (bring someone up from 0 for healing word, heal d8/level for cure wounds) doesn't care about it.

[Teaguethebean]

Off the top of my head, you are missing "Green Flame Blade" as a Cantrip.

"The second creature takes fire damage equal to your spellcasting ability modifier." It isn't the same as booming blade my dude.

[Mystical-man]

wow this is really helpful, the only extra step from here would be dividing them by class but that would probably take too long. Thanks for this though, makes choosing spells for bearbarian druid easier

[Chronos]

The d8 of a Cure Wounds averages 4.5 . An average of 4.5+5 is significantly different from an average of 4.5+0. So if you're trying to restore more HP (the only reason to use Cure Wounds instead of Healing Word), the +mod matters.

[strangebloke]

Yeah, heat metal is another one that's not actually stat dependent. Same with healing word and cure wounds, they get a small bonus from your casting stat but their main effect (bring someone up from 0 for healing word, heal d8/level for cure wounds) doesn't care about it.

I understand why OP didn't include them. It's preferable to be more objective, because otherwise you get into all kinds of silly discussions, like whether or not the potential +5 from cure wounds is really a big deal or no. I mean on the one hand, yeah, its like 50% more healing potentially. On the other hand, nah, you don't care about HP total, so long as your buddy is conscious.

Same for GFB.

Heat Metal is an example of a spell where the save really doesn't matter. I'd also bring up Polymorph and enlarge/reduce and pretty much all spells that are both buff and debuff. Sure, if you turn the opponent into a squirrel, your casting stat matters, but if you turn the party member into a T-Rex who cares what your casting stat is!

But yeah, I get why OP did it the way he did. I guess you'd almost need a two more lists of spells. One for spells that can be cast without using your casting stat, and one for spells where the casting stat is (subjectively) deemed to be pretty non-critical.

[apepi]

Wish could not use your casting stat depending on how you use it. Polymorph can also not use your casting stat as long as you cast it on a willing creature.

[OverLordOcelot]

I understand why OP didn't include them. It's preferable to be more objective, because otherwise you get into all kinds of silly discussions, like whether or not the potential +5 from cure wounds is really a big deal or no. I mean on the one hand, yeah, its like 50% more healing potentially. On the other hand, nah, you don't care about HP total, so long as your buddy is conscious.

I disagree. Something that gets a small bonus from a stat does not 'Rely' on the casting stat, it gets a small bonus from it. A spell that occasionally requires a save that uses the casting stat but doesn't in it's primary usage does not 'rely' on the casting stat, as in typical use the casting stat is irrelevant. The list should be titled something more like 'spells that don't use casting stat at all' if that's what you mean.


But yeah, I get why OP did it the way he did.

It makes it easier to make the list, but makes the list less useful. This list doesn't really tell you all that much, while a list that actually looked at spells that rely on a casting stat provides a useful resource for someone playing a caster who isn't focusing on their casting stat or thinking about a caster who doesn't focus on their casting stat.

[Teaguethebean]

*snip*
It makes it easier to make the list, but makes the list less useful. This list doesn't really tell you all that much, while a list that actually looked at spells that rely on a casting stat provides a useful resource for someone playing a caster who isn't focusing on their casting stat or thinking about a caster who doesn't focus on their casting stat.
I understand what you mean but I feel like if I put a spell like Healing word, Polymorph or even levitate it would devolve into a debate of what counts when I was purely just intrested in the design and thought process behind these spell.