Feat: Elemental Adept: Acid - What Spells Should You Choose?
Let’s talk about the Elemental Adept feat from the 5e Dungeons & Dragons Player’s Handbook and more specifically when choosing the acid damage type. The features of this feat are that you can ignore resistance to acid damage and any 1s on damage you roll are changed to 2s. You can also take this multiple times to add more damage types such as cold, fire, lightning, and thunder.
This is a niche sort of feat because of how little it actually does unless your party is going up against monsters that have resistance to acid damage. If the campaign you are in is littered with oozes, jellies, black dragons, and wraiths then this might not be a bad idea, but I doubt this is actually happening.
If you take this, it is very important that the cantrips you pick up are tied to acid damage. Only Artificers, Druids, Sorcerers, and Wizards have a single cantrip that causes acid damage available to them. Your other go-to damage spells had better be of the acid damage type. Remember you are giving up a +2 to your ability scores so that you never roll a 1 for your damage and you ignore damage resistance, so take every opportunity to use the features of this feat if you take it.
Here is a list of spells that have the acid damage type along with the classes (and subclasses) that have access to it:
Cantrip:
Acid Splash (Artificer, Sorcerer, and Wizard)
Primal Savagery (Druid)
1st Level:
Chromatic Orb (Sorcerer and Wizard)
Absorb Elements (Artificer, Druid, Ranger, Sorcerer, and Wizard)
Chaos Bolt (Sorcerer)
Tasha’s Caustic Brew (Artificer, Sorcerer, and Wizard)
2nd Level:
Melf’s Acid Arrow (Artificer (Alchemist) and Wizard)
Dragon’s Breath (Sorcerer and Wizard)
3rd Level:
Elemental Weapon (Artificer, Cleric (Forge Domain), Druid, Paladin, Ranger, and Warlock (Hexblade))
Hunger of Hadar (Sorcerer (Aberrant Mind) and Warlock)
4th Level:
Elemental Bane (Artificer, Druid, Warlock, and Wizard)
Vitriolic Sphere (Sorcerer and Wizard)
5th Level:
Summon Draconic Spirit (Druid, Sorcerer, and Wizard)
6th Level:
None
7th Level:
Prismatic Spray (Bard, Sorcerer, and Wizard)
8th Level:
Illusory Dragon (Wizard)
9th Level:
Prismatic Wall (Bard and Wizard)
Storm of Vengeance (Druid)
This list is extremely short with only seventeen spells that cause acid damage and your character will not have access to all of them. Artificers have five available unless they are alchemists then they will have six. Bards only have two spells with one being seventh-level and the other being a ninth-level spell. The Forge Domain Cleric and Paladins each have a single third-level spell available. Druids have the option to pick up six of the spells. Rangers have access to two of the spells. Sorcerers have nine spells available unless they are Abarrent Minds, then they have ten. Warlocks have two if they are Hexblades otherwise they only have one. And, finally, Wizards have the most with twelve total spells available to them.
If I were to choose the Elemental Adept feat for one of my characters then acid damage would be my last choice to focus on. This could be useful in the right campaign, but I would be hard-pressed to think of what that campaign would be. If this were a half-feat and your character also got a +1 to either Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma then I could recommend this feat, but as written there are much better options.
