Flock of Familiars, introduced in the Lost Laboratory of Kwalish, an adventure supporting the Extra Life charity produced by Wizards of the Coast, gives you access to three times the familiars. If you don’t have a familiar already, this is spectacular. If you already have one, this is pretty underwhelming.

Gravity Well and Gravity Fissure set you up as this master of physics; you manipulate the universe and the forces of gravity to break and bend the world. Dark Star is the spell you cast first that you’ll be Gravity Welling creatures into; a giant, black sphere of nothing that crushes everyone inside and makes it very difficult to get out.

That is all it does! Are you not playing in the Spelljammer setting? You do not need this! Do you have funds to purchase a spelljamming helm, or a spelljamming vessel with a helm already intact? You don’t need this! WHY IS THIS A SPELL?

The core difference between Air Bubble and Water Breathing, specifically when space isn’t really on the table, is the spell level versus party effect. Both have a 24 hour duration, but Water Breathing can affect up to ten creatures at once for just one slot higher. Air Bubble is only giving you three creatures for a 3rd level slot, and one for a 2nd.

As a 3rd level spell, you’re getting the HP Aid offers in a worse form alongside advantage on Wisdom saving throws while the temporary hit points last. When you’re hit (even if the temporary hit points are all consumed), you get advantage on one attack roll.

Kinetic Jaunt probably isn’t going to be all that helpful in going multiple places to get more uses out of it. As opposed to running past enemies one time, why not simply appear behind them? Other teleportation effects land in a similar boat. If the goal is to safely get past something, just teleport.

Jim’s Glowing Coin evokes the imagery of a shiny distraction getting all heads to turn and glare, but mechanically, it just works as a pseudo-blind. Everything has a harder time seeing, and a slightly slower reaction time. The fantasy doesn’t really line up too well with the mechanics.

Jim’s Magic Missile: three attack rolls with 2d4 damage but they crit for 5d4 and if any of them critically miss you get exploded! Wacky! Unpredictable! Potentially nuts, potentially horrible!

Incite Greed offers you an area of effect charmed condition that functionally incapacitates whatever fails the save until you or your buddies bring harm to it, friends be damned.

Outside of covering a slip up, Gift of Gab also can be used to dig for information discreetly. Clever roleplayers can come up with quick questions to try to learn information they’re not supposed to be poking around for; Gift of Gab can let you potentially uncover that information without it being apparent you were digging for it in the first place.

Fast Friends takes a powerful spell and amps it up. If you like Suggestion, Fast Friends should be in your wheelhouse. The up-cast reward of affecting more creatures is crazy good, and on its own it can take some NPC and get a task otherwise seemingly not doable to happen.

For what ends up being mainly a memory tool, Encode Thought delivers. If you want to be the pedantic “well ACTUALLY” guy, this is exactly the cantrip for you. Having an at-will way to protect your thoughts and record them safely is cool, and while not on the same level of useful as something like Mage Hand, absolutely can define some character feels.

Distort Value is the kind of spell that builds a character a reputation. When you come into town and are looking to sell off the pilfered swords and booty you’ve picked up adventuring, you might consider “Hey, what if we embellished them a bit, you know?

Borrowed Knowledge takes that idea of everyone having their moment and shoves a bunch of people out; if you’ve got a higher ability score than somebody else, Borrowed Knowledge lets you roll the check instead!

Wither and Bloom will be at its best when its functioning as an action cost Healing Word bringing up the paladin who just dropped while finishing off the few creatures that downed them. In those moments, there are no spells that are this cheap to cast that can have that enormous of an impact.

Vortex Warp does a lot of things Misty Step can’t. Being able to teleport a raging barbarian up to 90 feet can offer a tactical pincer maneuver out of nowhere. When the last of a group of enemies turns tail to run, Vortex Warp can simply deny them the opportunity to escape.

For one 5th level spell slot, you’re getting a 19 AC 50 hitpoint mult-attack flying ally with a breath weapon. That on its own is crazy powerful; each attack is dealing 1d6+4+spell level damage, resulting in each hit dealing 12ish damage each round, no actions required by you

Silvery Barbs is an outrageously efficient spell that works in nearly every situation you’d want, is exceptional at all tiers of play, and costs you next to nothing to use. Oh, and it’s on the spell list of one of if not the best class in the game. Crazy!

Rime’s Binding Ice is the perfect execution of the ice mage fantasy. It delivers solid damage while simultaneously applying a meaningful condition that satisfies the “freeze them solid” dream the caster has.

Raulothim’s Psychic Lance isn’t going to be something you’ll bust out in every fight, but in the fights you do, it can feel like a huge player. No, the condition nor damage alone justifies the slot, but together, they represent all you can really ask for out of a single target 4th level spell.