10 D&D Cantrips That Would Be the Most Useful in Real Life

Cantrips are an amazing tool in Dungeons and Dragons for spellcasters, giving you a way to bring damage and utility to help your party without burning through your spell slots. The cantrips you want to pick up can vary a lot depending on your party’s composition and the kind of setting that’s being used for your campaign. However, if you look at cantrips through the lens of what would be the most useful to have access to in real life, then the list changes, because you’re going to want to prioritize pure utility over potential damage for the sake of making your life easier.

Surprisingly—or perhaps not—there are a lot of cantrips that would be fantastic to have in real life. Quite a few of them have uses that are practical for a normal modern life, even when you don’t need to fight enemies or go on an adventure. They just would make tedious tasks less annoying to deal with and faster to complete.

1. Prestidigitation

Basically every potential use for prestidigitation would be great to have for daily life. You could light candles, torches, and campfires without ever needing matches or a lighter. Or maybe you want to chill, warm, or flavor material like a living microwave. However, the best use might be the ability to clean an object instantaneously. It might be limited to smaller objects and one at a time, but it would still make some chores way easier.

2. Mage Hand

Need a hand? Then, you need mage hand. It only lasts for a minute at a time, but that’s enough to complete tasks like opening a door for you because you’re hands are full. If you like cooking or baking, you could use it to be more efficient or make it easier to cook multiple dishes at once, such as preparing a holiday meal. Otherwise, you always have the choice to annoy your friends with a mage hand.

3. Mending

With mending, you’d be able to keep your clothes in their best shape, since you could easily repair tears in them instantly, assuming that the tear isn’t larger than a foot in any direction. You would technically be able to use it to complete small home repairs too, since it doesn’t list restrictions for the types of materials that can be mended. As long as it matches the dimension requirements, you should be able to fix it with mending.

4. Message

Message is basically the perfect solution to those times when you’re in a group and you want to tell just one person something without the rest of the group hearing it. You point at your target, whisper your message, and then only your target can hear it. On top of that, this cantrip makes it possible for your target to whisper a reply that only you can hear.

5. Light

Light can feel like an underrated spell in some campaigns, but it would be incredibly useful in real life. You basically have the ability to make anything into a powerful flashlight, no batteries needed. This would be perfect for anybody who lives in areas where storms might knock out power regularly, as you would be able to have a light source without draining your phone battery, which can sometimes be the only other option you have at the time.

6. Mold Earth

Mold earth would be great for anybody who has to do a lot of digging or deal with the ground regularly. You can use it to excavate and deposit loose earth, create shapes in dirt, and turn difficult terrain into normal terrain. Compared to other cantrips on this list, mold earth is more situational regarding who would get use out of it in real life, but there are definitely jobs where this would be the best option to have as a cantrip.

7. Shape Water

Shape water has a limit of impacting up to the amount of water that can fit in a five-foot cube, but that can be enough sometimes. For small tasks like spilling water, you would be able to move the water to clean it up without issue. You could also complete tasks like freezing water, which would be amazing for hot days to keep your drinks cold. While you don’t get life-changing impacts from shape water, you get some nice little benefits.

8. Create Bonfire

Similar to shape water, create bonfire only makes a fire big enough to fill a five-foot cube. While you can start a fire at any time, create bonfire is a bit more dangerous than other cantrips on this list, as there’s a chance to deal damage to creatures who are in the bonfire’s space when you create it. The fire only lasts for a minute, but if you’re using it to start a fire and have the kindling ready, then the time shouldn’t be an issue.

9. Control Flames

A great companion to create bonfire, control flames has the same limit of impacting fire that fills a five-foot cube. However, it lets you have more direct influence than create bonfire, as you can expand the fire in a direction as long as there’s fuel, extinguish the fire, change the amount and intensity of the fire, and even create shapes out of the fire. It lasts up to an hour, so you’d have plenty of time to literally play with fire.

10. Druidcraft

Druidcraft has a ton of possibilities since you have multiple usage options for the spell. You can use it to predict the weather at your current location for the next 24 hours, make a flower blossom, create harmless sensory effects like animal sounds, and light or extinguish a small flame. Next to prestidigitation, this might be the most versatile cantrip option, but it has more nature-based effects, whereas prestidigitation’s effects would be more useful for the general population on a day-to-day basis.

Cantrips are often fun in campaigns, and when you read their effects, you realize how amazing some of them would be to have in real life. While it’s unfortunate that humans don’t have the ability to tap into such magic, considering these hypothetical situations can make you get creative with the potential of various spells, which you can then apply in-game.