Our 5 Favorite Cantrips (Best For Flavor & Fun) in D&D 5e

It takes careful planning and precise execution when using your spell slots in 5e, and then you have cantrips that can be thrown around left and right with no regard to anything. Different cantrips give you different flavors, and can be a blast to use, let's check out our 10 favorite ones that can bring some exciting flavor and fun to your character!

5. Green Flame Blade

Classes: Artificer, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard, Rogue (Arcane Trickster)
Feats: Magic Initiate, Spell Sniper

What It Does:
You brandish the weapon used in the spell’s casting and make a melee attack with it against one creature within 5 feet of you. On a hit, the target suffers the weapon attack’s normal effects, and you can cause green fire to leap from the target to a different creature of your choice that you can see within 5 feet of it. The second creature takes fire damage equal to your spellcasting ability modifier.

At Higher Levels: At 5th level, the melee attack deals an extra 1d8 fire damage to the target on a hit, and the fire damage to the second creature increases to 1d8 + your spellcasting ability modifier. Both damage rolls increase by 1d8 at 11th level (2d8 and 2d8) and 17th level (3d8 and 3d8).

Our Thoughts:
Not everyone loves the utility of this cantrip, especially considering you need a second enemy within 5 feet of you for it to really boast its abilities - especially before level 5. But, considering you get an AUTOMATIC damage to a second enemy, what's not to love about a 2-for-1. This can especially be fun in larger-scale battle settings - where groups of enemies may be coming after your squishy (but hopefully not too squishy if you're thinking about melee attacks) spellcaster self. And what's not to love with the idea of flame jumping around the battlefield upon your swing. We might end up making a whole character with this theme, look forward to it!

4. Vicious Mockery

Classes: Bard
Feats: Magic Initiate (Bard)

What It Does:
You unleash a string of insults laced with subtle enchantments at a creature you can see within range. If the target can hear you (though it need not understand you), it must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw or take 1d4 psychic damage and have disadvantage on the next attack roll it makes before the end of its next turn.

At Higher Levels: This spell's damage increases by 1d4 when you reach 5th level (2d4), 11th level (3d4), and 17th level (4d4).

Our Thoughts:
If we're talking about a list of cantrips great for flavor, you might be wondering how Vicious Mockery isn't #1. So are we! This is probably one of the most fun cantrips you can have, because the sheer amount of creativity you can have with this one is amazing. I enjoy one-liner quips a little too much, and this gives me so many excuses to come up with more. The only reason why this is at #4 is that it's only available to the Bard class, and requires multiclassing or a feat to get if you wanted it. It makes perfect sense to be a Bard speciality, but there's more cantrips that can be used with more than one class. Still one of our absolute favorites!

3. Thaumaturgy

Classes: Cleric
Feats: Magic Initiate (Cleric)

What It Does:
You manifest a minor wonder, a sign of supernatural power, within range. You create one of the following magical effects within range:

• Your voice booms up to three times as loud as normal for 1 minute.
• You cause flames to flicker, brighten, dim, or change color for 1 minute.
• You cause harmless tremors in the ground for 1 minute.
• You create an instantaneous sound that originates from a point of your choice within range, such as a rumble of thunder, the cry of a raven, or ominous whispers.
• You instantaneously cause an unlocked door or window to fly open or slam shut.
• You alter the appearance of your eyes for 1 minute.

If you cast this spell multiple times, you can have up to three of its 1-minute effects active at a time, and you can dismiss such an effect as an action.

Our Thoughts:
When reviewing 5 out of the many cantrips available, we couldn't resist taking  Thaumaturgy. Same as Vicious Mockery though, this cantrip is limited to only one class - Cleric. But, just look at all the different effects this one cantrip has! Cantrips are the best for flavor, and for fun, when they're able to accomplish multiple things, and the things you can do with this one just screams shenanigans and fun.

2. Booming Blade

Classes: Artificer, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard, Rogue (Arcane Trickster)
Feats: Magic Initiate, Spell Sniper

What It Does:
Any melee weapon (worth at least 1 SP as part of the Material components of the spell), can be brandished by this cantrip to sheath a creature within 5 feet of you with booming energy, as long as your weapon attack hits it. Along with the melee weapon attack's normal effects, if the target willingly moves 5 feet or more before the start of your next turn, it takes 1d8 thunder damage (scaled by levels).

At Higher Levels: At 5th level, the melee attack deals an extra 1d8 thunder damage on a hit, and the target takes 2d8 thunder damage for moving. At 11th level, extra 2d8 thunder damage on a hit, and the target takes 3d8 thunder damage for moving. At 17th level, 3d8 thunder on a hit, 4d8 thunder on moving.

Our Thoughts:
There is some amazing flavor here, especially thinking about any character that doesn't necessarily get a second attack! Finding clever ways to get the enemy to move after using this is a blast, as is the extra damage we get starting at level 5.

Our next character in the Steal This Character series will actually use this as their ultimate attack, and it's so fun! Stay up to date with us by joining our newsletter for the latest posts and more!

1. Prestidigitation

Classes: Artificer, Bard, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard, Rogue (Arcane Trickster)
Feats: Magic Initiate

What It Does:
This spell is a minor magical trick that novice spellcasters use for practice. You create one of the following magical effects within range:

• You create an instantaneous, harmless sensory effect, such as a shower of sparks, a puff of wind, faint musical notes, or an odd odor.
• You instantaneously light or snuff out a candle, a torch, or a small campfire.
• You instantaneously clean or soil an object no larger than 1 cubic foot.
• You chill, warm, or flavor up to 1 cubic foot of nonliving material for 1 hour.
• You make a color, a small mark, or a symbol appear on an object or a surface for 1 hour.
• You create a nonmagical trinket or an illusory image that can fit in your hand and that lasts until the end of your next turn.

If you cast this spell multiple times, you can have up to three of its non-instantaneous effects active at a time, and you can dismiss such an effect as an action.

Our Thoughts:
I mean, the words "best for flavor & fun" is in the title. And if we didn't go Prestidigitation here, where else would we go? The most simple sounding spell can be used for the most creative things, and it's awesome! Whether you play D&D for the combat, the roleplay, the exploration, or whatever - you can't deny that creativity is needed for all of it. And with the sheer amount of seemingly small things you can do with this one cantrip (with up to 3 effects active at a time), your ideas can go crazy. One of our favorite characters we built, Yoroe Jacqueson (who if not already out as a Steal This Character series, will be in the near future), was actually built thanks to the ideas this cantrip gave. It's just plain fun, and that's what we want out of this game, and out of these cantrips.

Ok, so I think we can agree that 5 is too few to choose from, and there are SO many more amazing cantrips that can be super flavorful and fun to use! But - as of right now - these are our most favorite. All that means is that we'll probably have a part 2 of this list coming out in the future, because Mage Hand and Minor Illusion exist.

Don't forget to subscribe to receive email updates whenever we put up a new post! Either a new list, or a new character from our Steal This Character 5e series, where we build fun, flavorful characters, full with backstory, character sheets, and the story so far between each level up - so you can take the character at any level you need!

Check out the first one we posted, Alelite Alefist, a berserker barbarian with a tree trunk filled with home brewed ale almost three times his size!

Thanks for sticking around, let's keep it flavorful!