Crown of Stars in 5e: Spell Guide & Why You Should Use It

Spell Description

Seven star-like motes of light appear and orbit your head until the spell ends. You can use a bonus action to send one of the motes streaking toward one creature or object within 120 feet of you.

When you do so, make a ranged spell attack. On a hit, the target takes 4d12 radiant damage. Whether you hit or miss, the mote is expended. The spell ends early if you expend the last mote.

If you have four or more motes remaining, they shed bright light in a 30-foot radius and dim light for an additional 30 feet. If you have one to three motes remaining, they shed dim light in a 30—foot radius.

At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 8th level or higher, the number of motes created increases by two for each slot level above 7th.

• Concentration: No
• Ritual: No
• Materials Required: None
• Number of Targets: One creature or object within 120 feet of you
• Die Type: d12
• Number of Dice: 4 
• Damage Type: Radiant
• Save: None
• Damage on Successful Save: N/A
• Statuses Inflicted: None
• Status Duration: None
• Affected By Cover: Yes
• Advantage: None
• Disadvantage: None

What Is Crown of Stars?

Crown of Stars is an extremely powerful 7th-level conjuration spell that allows you to create seven starlike motes of radiant energy.

For the duration of the spell, you can use a bonus action to make a ranged spell attack with one of these stars, dealing 4d12 radiant damage on a hit, expending the star in the process.

This spell is absolutely stellar. One of the first things you should notice is that this is not a concentration spell.

If it was, you’d be putting a lot of effort into holding up these motes of energy, and you’d be restricting yourself on the amount of spells you can effectively cast. 

It’s rare that we see a non-concentration spell that lasts as long as this, but when we do, we count our lucky stars. Okay, that’s my last star joke for a while, I promise.

The next thing we notice about this spell is that you make the actual attacks for it on your bonus action. This frees up your action for all sorts of madness and puts a hefty attack in as an afterthought. 

The damage value for this spell on a single turn might seem pretty low, 48 max damage coming from a 13th or higher level character isn’t insane. Luckily, we’re considering the overall value.

That maximum damage should actually be 336 for a single 7th-level spell slot. Not to mention the other spells you’ve managed to cast over the course of seven turns.

There are also some really fun results of this spell lasting for an hour.

You can cast this when you’re getting into a dark area of a dungeon and benefit from the cute bright light effect for up to 59 minutes, and then get all the combat value off of the stars over the course of a 1-minute combat.

The timescale here is a bit exaggerated, but my point is that you don’t have to wait until combat to cast this. If you feel it approaching, there are other benefits outside of combat for this spell.

When Should I Cast Crown of Stars?

This spell doesn’t punish you for poor decision making. Aside from in the middle of the day when you’re shopping in a town, there probably aren’t many bad times to cast this.

So long as you have a decent likelihood of getting the combat value from this spell, you’re in a good place.

Now, while you can cast this outside of combat for its bright light, that is a really dramatic solution. Daylight is a 3rd-level spell that’s going to make bright light for double the distance.

There’s your simple answer to the problem of delving through a dark dungeon. 

An hour-long duration on a spell is a gift and a curse.

Sure, we can cast it before we enter combat and save ourselves an entire action once the battle gets underway, but that requires us accurately guessing when combat is coming.

If it was 8 hours, that would be a different story, and casting Crown of Stars would be part of your morning ritual right along with Mage Armor. 

So we end up in some situations where we have to take a bit of a gamble. Either we activate our crown and hope for combat, or we save the spell slot for combat and end up using the action.

Aside from your heavily built-up boss battles and large army encounters, we just don’t have any ways of knowing when there are creatures waiting in ambush for us… or do we?

Preparing for Crown of Stars with some sort of detection spell or ability makes for a nice little pairing.

Detect Evil and Good is a 1st-level concentration spell that allows you to sense aberration, celestial, elemental, fey, fiend, or undead creatures within 30 feet of you.

Now, instead of jumping straight to your 7th-level slot, you can burn a 1st-level slot and be absolutely sure that you can throw up your crown at the perfect moment. 

There are other abilities out there that allow characters to do similar things to Detect Evil and Good, so if any of your party members have such an ability, that might even save you the 1st-level spell slot.

This is where good communication and tactics come in.

Speaking of tactics, a familiar summoned by Find Familiar can make an excellent scout.

Sending them ahead to check a room or hallway for bogies is another very cheap way to hold on to your 7th-level slot until the opportune moment. Just make sure that whiskers doesn’t become a goblin’s snack, and we’re good here.

Why Should I Take Crown of Stars?

With casters getting a maximum of two 7th-level spell slots at level 20, it can be tough to choose which insanely high leveled spell you’ll want to be casting.

Crown of Stars is a great fit for casters focused on ranged or melee spell attacks and mainly just spell attack rolls in general.

If you’re going for the war mage type of build or all flashy attack spells that let you roll the dice, this is a really amazing 7th-level spell for you. 

In fact, Crown of Stars is the one of only two damage-dealing 7th-level spells available to these classes that relies on an attack roll instead of a saving throw.

That’s pretty substantial. It gets better too, because the other spell, Mordenkainen’s Sword, is a concentration spell. 

That means that Crown of Stars is so incredibly unique, it’s the only spell you’re going to pick up at this level that does what it does. Nothing else feels like it comes remotely close.

If you’ve gone through the campaign collecting abilities and magical items that allow you to get a bonus to spell-attack rolls, this is going to be a one-of-a-kind insanely powerful spell.

Good Pairings With Crown of Stars

Here are some abilities, spells, or magical items that will give you an even more powerful casting of Crown of Stars.

• Wand of the War Mage – This magic item gives you a +1, +2, or +3 bonus to spell-attack rolls, depending on rarity, and allows you to ignore half cover on your ranged-spell attacks. This means all the more chance of dealing your damage perfectly with each and every star.
• Robe of the Archmagi – Conveniently, this legendary robe is only attunable by the three classes that can cast this spell. Among many other effects perfect for spellcasters, it increases your spell-attack bonus by 2.
• Empowered Spell – This metamagic option allows you to spend 1 sorcery point to reroll a number of damage dice equal to your charisma modifier. By 13th-level, this should be 4, and you should be able to reroll all of your damage dice if necessary.
• Seeking Spell – If you miss on your attack roll, even after all your bonuses, you can reroll the d20 for 2 sorcery points.
• Find Familiar – Anything that can increase your chances of hitting your targets is important, and a familiar giving you advantage through use of the help action will be excellent.

Crown of Stars is an amazing spell.

While it’s not the right spell for every caster out there, those who do choose it are in for some incredible damage outputs and are sure to be the MVPs of most combat encounters. I hope you enjoy this spell as much as I do.

As always, happy adventuring.