The companion piece. If you want the rules, the fifty-year history, and the whole 2014 versus 2024 breakdown, that’s all in the Faerie Fire explainer post. Go read that first, then come back here, because this time the question is what you can get away with once everything in the room is glowing purple.
Faerie Fire is a spell the optimizer crowd and the “I hate this spell” crowd have been arguing about for a decade, so the Reddit trenches were a good place to dig. I pulled the math threads, the rules fights, and the cursed corners, and sorted them into four buckets. Real uses that lean on the text. Cheeses that are clever and mostly legal. Questionable stuff that lives and dies by your DM. And the deviant stuff, which this time includes a magic item that casts the spell on its own wearer forever. Everything here comes from real threads, cited as we go so you can check my work. Fight me in the comments, but bring receipts.
REAL USES
1. It’s a cheaper Bless for any party that makes attack rolls. The whole case in one quote, from the thread where a player ranted that he hates this spell and the top reply disagreed: “I don’t think I can think of a more powerful level 1 spell effect than ‘grant AoE advantage against a group of enemies.’ Advantage is a lot more powerful than a +2 on a d20. On a lot of the biggest, baddest foes, DEX is their lowest save, too.” In the Bless versus Faerie Fire versus Hex thread, one poster did the quick math: “If you normally hit 50% of the time, with advantage you’ll hit 75% of the time. That means you’ll effectively do 50% more damage.” For the whole party, off a first-level slot. (deleted user, r/dndnext ; u/xthrowawayxy, r/dndnext, r/dndnext)
2. Rogues love it, and Crawford said so. Advantage triggers Sneak Attack, and the spell hands it to the rogue on every attack, every round, with nobody needing to stand next to the target. One druid: “there were 3 PCs with sneak attack in the party where I played a druid, so faerie fire was my go to spell for the first round of every combat that looked remotely challenging.” Jeremy Crawford’s own words: “Sneak Attack works with advantage no matter how the rogue got the advantage. Faerie fire is perfect for it.” (u/rezukijm, r/dndnext ; Crawford via sageadvice.eu)
3. It beats See Invisibility, because it fixes the problem for everyone. A wizard asking whether to drop it once he had Web got this answer: “See Invisibility may allow you to deal with invisible enemies, but it doesn’t do anything for your party.” And from the 2024 thread, the best war story in the pile: “Faerie Fire was absolutely a deciding factor in a massive sprawling 6 hour combat we had with level 20 characters at my table last year. Greater invisibility mage disrupting almost everything failed the dex save and died in a single round.” Level 20. First-level slot. (u/Rhyshalcon, r/3d6 ; u/62bitCrit, r/onednd, r/onednd)
4. One save, and then they’re stuck. Entangle and Web let the target spend actions trying to get out. Faerie Fire has one Dexterity save on the turn you cast it and then nothing, for a minute. “If you get tagged with FF you’re painted for the rest of the fight buddy. And even Dispel Magic is trading a 3rd level slot for a 1st.” The Entangle comparison thread landed in the same spot: “Faerie Fire is if you want the effect to last a longer number of turns with no means for the creature to end the effect other than hitting you.” (u/i_tyrant, r/onednd ; u/Coldfyre_Dusty, r/dndnext, r/dndnext)
5. Aim it at the big dumb thing. Dexterity is the dump stat on ogres, giants, and most of the “hits like a truck” monsters. “Faerie Fire is DEX save, it is better against giants or Ogres and the like to gain advantage against their armor and bring them down fast since Giants have very high STR and low DEX.” On bosses, the Lore Bard thread offered this: “Consider the likelihood of burning away a Legendary Resistance of a low-dex boss monster for the low low price of a 1st level spell slot.” Either the dragon glows for a minute or it spent a legendary resistance on your cheapest spell. (u/testiclekid, r/dndnext ; u/MadWhiskeyGrin, r/dndnext, r/dndnext)
6. Druids, prepare it next to Entangle and pick the save. Entangle hits Strength and can’t touch fliers. Faerie Fire hits Dexterity and you can burst it in mid-air. “Very rarely will you feel foolish for preparing both as a Druid,” wrote one, and a reply admitted “I’ve been playing a Druid for a year now and I didn’t think of just preparing both until now.” The flier point, same thread: “Flying creatures. Entangle targets Strength while faerie fire targets Dexterity.” (u/Hyperionides, u/Vince-M, u/thomar, r/dndnext)
7. The light is a second spell. Painted creatures shed dim light, and so do the objects, which get no save. One player backs it “in groups that lack darkvision, since a success also causes them to shed dim light,” and another added that “even if the enemy passes their saving throw, losing the biggest benefit of Faerie Fire, unattended objects in the area will still radiate dim light.” Someone in the 2024 thread cast it on an ally who fell through ice into dark water, “to make it easier to grab them.” (u/RisingDusk and u/CrashProne86, r/dndnext ; u/robot_wrangler, r/onednd, r/onednd)
8. It’s your filler-fight concentration spell at high level. “If you have 5 fights in a day, you only have hypnotic pattern for 2 of them. What do you do the other 3? Well, faerie fire makes the fight a lot easier for just a single 1st level slot.” A player who ran a bard to 20 said it “was till getting regular use against CR 20+ creatures.” (u/matgopack and u/MusclesDynamite, r/dndnext)
9. Glitter bomb the room. Objects in the cube get no save, so a 3,200 upvote thread argued the spell is a dungeon tool as much as a debuff, with tripwires and pressure plates lighting up as separate objects. A player confirmed it from the chair: “I cast faerie fire in a room to see if anyone was watching us and ended up discovering a hidden box instead.” A DM confirmed it from the other side: “All traps were invisible, creating an empty room. Players faerie fire’d the room. I told them, ‘hah! Nice’ and we moved on to the next floor.” And my favorite, from a fight against a beholder’s antimagic cone: “I cast Faerie Fire on a whole bunch of caltrops. I then spent a couple turns scattering them across the battlefield, effectively giving us vision, plus knowledge of where the anti-magic cone was.” Whether a given trap counts as an object is a DM call, and the thread said so. (u/allolive, u/suneater08, u/AlyxandarSN, u/th3ch0s3n0n3, r/dndnext)
CHEESES (clever, and mostly legal)
10. Dip Artificer to cast it off Intelligence, then feed your skeletons. A necromancer wanted advantage for a pile of skeleton archers, and the thread pointed at the artificer list: “Faerie Fire is on the Artificer list. So that would let you use int for the spell. And you could grab guidance and another cantrip to really round out the character.” Same thread, fair warning: archers have disadvantage with a hostile within 5 feet, so the skeletons still have to keep their distance. (u/RggdGmr and u/metroidcomposite, r/3d6)
11. Carve your friends out, or win initiative. Faerie Fire is an evocation spell, and as one poster noted, “Sculpt Spell is limited to evocation spells, but not to Wizard spells,” so a drow evoker or an artificer-dipped evoker can exempt allies. Sorcerers have Careful Spell. And if all else fails: “Cast it anyway. If more PCs fail their saves than monsters do, immediately cease concentrating on it. Try again next round. It can never hurt you more than it helps.” (u/jim_uses_CAPS and u/hemlockR, r/3d6)
12. Upcast to 3rd so Darkness can’t eat it. The Drizzt trick. A tiefling hexblade with Devil’s Sight asked whether her Darkness would wipe the druid’s Faerie Fire off the enemies, and once somebody read the Darkness text the answer was “If FF has been cast using a 3rd level slot or higher, then Darkness wouldn’t end it.” Darkness dispels light spells of 2nd level or lower, and Crawford confirmed the 1st level version gets dispelled. So a 3rd level Faerie Fire plus Darkness plus Devil’s Sight means the painted enemies are visible to you, glowing, and blind. (u/Lacutis01 thread, r/DnD ; Crawford via sageadvice.eu)
13. Faerie Fire plus Greater Invisibility to fight a medusa. Outline the medusa, then have a second caster turn her invisible. Your party sees a glowing outline and attacks with advantage, but nobody sees her eyes. The thread liked it: “You’ve taken the rules of the game and resolved a potential problem for your party, and that’s what I like to see.” Whether an outlined invisible medusa’s gaze still works is a DM call, so ask before you spend two concentration slots on it. (u/ThomTimm thread, r/DnD)
14. The 2024 Cartographer artificer is built around it, and Reddit is not sold. Cartographers get free castings and, at 5th level, add Intelligence to damage against painted targets and can’t lose concentration on it from damage. “I agree Faerie Fire needs a buff if the subclass is going to be so invested in it,” wrote one poster, and another made the design argument: “no spellcaster should ever be forced to rely on a single Concentration spell unless one of their feature also removes the Concentration requirement.” A third pushed back that the spell “automatically scales with the effectiveness of your allies’ attacks.” Play one and you’re the party’s advantage dispenser whether you like it or not. (u/Shamann93 and u/One-Tin-Soldier, r/onednd ; u/DBWaffles, r/3d6, r/3d6)
QUESTIONABLE (check with your table)
15. The Eversmoking Bottle combo does not work, sorry. A paladin with Blind Fighting opened an Eversmoking Bottle every fight, and the druid started painting enemies so the rest of the party could attack through the smoke. The DM asked how to counter it, and the answer was that the rules already do: “Faerie Fire requires you to see the target. The Eversmoking Bottle however makes it so that creatures within it’s range are effectively blinded and can NOT see the enemies, let alone the effect of Faerie Fire, resulting in them still having disadvantage.” Same answer for Fog Cloud and magical darkness. An older thread: “If the target is heavily obscured, such as through pyrotechnic smoke or magical darkness, then faerie fire offers no benefit.” Lightly obscured, you still get advantage. Heavily obscured, nothing, because the advantage clause says “if the attacker can see it.” (u/Trevantier, r/DMAcademy ; u/Goreness, r/dndnext, r/dndnext)
16. Detect Mimics. Objects glow with no save, creatures have to save, so a chest that fails glows and you beat it with advantage, and a chest that saves is the one chest in the room that isn’t glowing. One player tried it: “It saved with a dexterity throw – which meant the rug it was pretending to be had to jump up and move out of the way, so we could identify it anyway!” Whether a motionless mimic gets a save at all is a judgment call, and half the thread said you’d have to already suspect a mimic to spend the slot. (u/KasebierPro and u/kaylola, r/DnD) Same bucket for illusions. The utility thread suggested the spell “also would indicate illusions, as they would not get an outline,” a rebuttal said an illusion isn’t an object so there’s nothing to grab, and nothing in the text says “reveals illusions,” so that one is a DM call every time. (u/Mayhem-Ivory, r/dndnext)
17. Bless or Faerie Fire? Ask the room. The best answer I found was a flowchart: “Are the enemies making my allies make saving throws?” Yes = Bless. No = “Can I fit 3+ enemies or a boss in Faerie Fire without hitting any teammates?” Yes = Faerie Fire. No = Bless. The same poster added that “Advantage is so much better than +1d4 in terms of accuracy and crit chance that even at a 60% chance of landing it, you are better off if you can tie the number of allies that will benefit from a Bless.” Bless’s save bonus is the tiebreaker. (u/SuperMakotoGoddess, r/dndnext)
DEVIANT, FUNNY, AND CURSED
18. The cursed ring of infinite Faerie Fire. A paladin found a ring that casts Faerie Fire centered on him, permanently, no concentration, new save whenever something enters the area, and asked how to abuse it. The thread delivered. “Congrats you just acquired a permanent reckless attack/pack tactics combo while in melee.” “You are walking Pack Tactics. Take GWM for the -5/+10. Swing with advantage.” And the one I’d do: “Armor of Agathys. Since enemies will be getting advantage on hitting you, might as well make them hurt some.” Resilient Dexterity to pass your own save was the other popular pick. If your DM hands you this, you are the party’s glowing bait, so lean into it. (u/HogRiiiideeer, u/scarr3g, u/Dlax8, u/D0C20, r/3d6)
19. Rainbow Faerie Fire. A 2,000 upvote “busted combo” post argued that Faerie Fire is “severely limited in that you can only choose three colors,” and Thaumaturgy lets you change the color of light, “so together, you can cast faerie fire… and change the color to literally anything you want.” The top reply brought the RAW hammer: “Thaumaturgy only allows you to change the color of flames, and Faerie Fire(despite it’s name) only highlights the enemies in colored ‘light’, not ‘flames’. Though I would allow it.” Prismatic Faerie Fire at level one, please nerf. (u/Ogskive and u/Ioregnak, r/3d6)
20. It’s a magical glitter bomb, and the internet agrees. The top comment on the utility thread, at two thousand upvotes: “Faerie fire is the magical version of all those heist and spy movies where they spray water vapor that reveals the laser traps.” Reply: “It’s a magical glitter bomb. You just set it off, and everything is coated in glitter.” Reply to that: “The true magic is that it eventually dissipates, unlike glitter which can’t be removed by any means, magical or nonmagical.” And on why drow get it, from the lore thread: “nature boys can cast this. That’s just a given. And the class that focuses totally on the things of civilization, like lying, music, rhetoric, they can have it too. But no one else! No one except exactly those two! Oh, unless you’re a chaotic spider-worshipping psycho torture elf. Then it’s all yours.” (u/Belltent, u/FogeltheVogel, u/kingdead42, r/dndnext ; u/rdhight, r/dndnext, r/dndnext)
21. Cast it at your players. The drow way. A drow patrol paints the party and drops Darkness on the campfire, and even the rant thread that hated the 5e version admitted the raid works: “extinguish any forms of light (like a campfire) with the darkness spell and use fairy fire to illuminate the targets, mainly for the advantage on attacks and secondly so that they are clearly illuminated for the purposes of identifying those trying to hide or flee.” Keep the Darkness off the painted targets or it dispels your own Faerie Fire. And for pure DM cruelty, the mimic thread suggested keeping the party paranoid in a mundane room “by just rolling some d20’s behind the screen and asking what the spell save DC is.” (u/GuitakuPPH, r/dndnext ; u/MeanderingDuck, r/DnD, r/DnD)
So that’s the pile. Paint the big dumb thing, put a rogue next to it, keep it prepared for the invisible wizard, and upcast it to third if a warlock is about to drop Darkness. What’s your best Faerie Fire moment, and be honest, how many of your own party members have you lit up by accident? Let me know in the comments below, and until next time, roll high and stay ridiculous.
