Best low level wizard spells.

[catsora]

As we all know, wizards can be super powerful. But what I'm looking for are people's opinions on what are some of the better wizards spells accessible at lower levels, say up to 3rd level spells.
Some of my personal favorites being;
Grease for its multiple uses (disarming and area denial)
Mage hand, very handy to have in plenty of situations or when being a lazy wizard.
Web for mass grapples.
Acid arrow, I like this one mostly because it makes enemy casters make more concentration checks.
Sleet storm because it blocks vision, slows enemies, and has a pretty big radius.
Haste, party buff that potentially gives the meleers an extra attack among other things.

[limejuicepowder]

Glitterdust is a very popular spell, and a personal favorite.

It's (sort of) counterpart, invisibility, is a classic and almost always useful for something.

I also like the subtle nature of most enchantment spells. Sleep and charm person are well known, but lots of other are fun too: like pathfinder's unnatural lust.

[ArcturusV]

Silent Image. Ghost Sound. Always good in my book. Also if you can get the old Lightning Bolt house ruled in... that was not just a TON of fun... it was also insanely powerful. If you weren't aware, "Back in the Day"(tm), a Lightning Bolt used to always go out to it's full range. Regardless of what was in it's way, hitting multiple targets. But it would also ricochet off walls if it still had range. In almost any dungeon you'd run into it'd have so much range that if you were some pool shark master of geometry type you could cover every square of a room (Other than your own) with several instances of Lightning damage all at once.

Oh, and Prestidigitation. Someone on this forum has a signature that basically says "It's like Wish, but at level 0" or something. Which is entirely accurate. it's such a catch all for thousands of potentially useful effects that I never leave my spell book without it memorized.

[Twilightwyrm]

Dark Way is a good one. It allows you to create a temporary, "unbreakable" "bridge". I say "bridge" because while you can indeed use it to cross gaps, it's real utility comes from using it vertically to create low level unbreakable walls.
Belker Claws is also a good one. As a touch spell, it does require that you (or your familiar) get fairly close to the enemy, but once it hits, they take an automatic, untyped, 2d12 damage per round for 3 rounds. True, if it rolls minimum you are looking at a minor annoyance, but you are looking at about 13 damage per round, which at this level is quite good. (Incidentally, it can, as a 2nd level spell, be persisted fairly easily. This is useful for when you just need something to die, and you don't anticipate it gaining access to dispel magic in the near future. Hit them with this, run away, and let them wait as their unavoidable doom approached).
Glitterdust...well this has been talked about to death. Making the entire enemy group blinded means they are more or less crippled for the rest of the fight.
I've always found mending quite helpful. Sure, it can only repair a few things, but unless your DM does combat like a Final Fantasy game where character's clothing never degrades, the clothing of any adventurer is going to get cut up, burned, and otherwise beaten to hell, even after just one adventure. This makes you presentable for when you go back to town, and means you get to avoid having to visit the tailor/buy new clothing every time.
Shatter...well when you don't particularly care if your opponent's armor is broken, there is always that. But, as as been previously noted, the better utility for this spell comes from its use as an all purpose lock pick. Why attempt to beat the lock, when you can just break it?
These are just a few.

[ericgrau]

You hit most of the good ones already, but here we go.

Empowered Ray of Enfeeblement. No save, just suck.
False Life. Gain defense without wasting a combat turn.
Fireball of course. It's hard to beat against 2 or more enemies and the radius helps make that happen.
Flaming sphere. It's an efficient way to get past the level 3-4 hump and it can be a backup at level 5-6. Then you ditch it.
Silent Image/Minor Image - It can take some creativity and subtlety but it works well when it does.
Invisibility, though I like it better on a sorcerer so you can whole-party spam it when required, or do something else when not. On a wizard, wand it. Or get advanced information, rest 24 hours, and dedicate all your 2nd level spells to invisibility.

[AttilaTheGeek]

Oh, and Prestidigitation. Someone on this forum has a signature that basically says "It's like Wish, but at level 0" or something. Which is entirely accurate. it's such a catch all for thousands of potentially useful effects that I never leave my spell book without it memorized.

:smallbiggrin:

[Eldariel]

Silent Image
Grease
Ray of Enfeeblement
Enlarge Person
Charm Person
(Mage Armor & Protection from X, Shield if applicable)

Those are always good. Magic Missile is reasonable later on; terrible before you get ~4-5 missiles, and True Strike becomes more relevant when miss chances become more common and you begin facing enemies who pump their Touch AC.

Then you have the low level stomping spells in Sleep and Color Spray. Color Spray is still relevant around level 5.

Outside Core you get Benign Transposition, Ray of Clumsiness, Hail of Stone (poor alone but a great metamagic stacking platform since it's very hard to resist), Power Word: Pain (don't use it, this spell is dumb), True Casting (True Strike for SR), etc.


Level 2 you have Glitterdust, Web & Pyrotechnics as the quintessential offensive spells. Shatter also has a lot of utility here.

Defensively you have Alter Self (the ridiculous spell), Invisibility, See Invisibility, Mirror Image, Resist Energy (only shines with CL 11 tho), False Life & Bull's Strength line.

Then you have utility like Minor Image, Detect Thoughts, Rope Trick (safeish restring when you can Extend it for over 8 hours) & such. Scorching Ray is also one of the highest damage/level spells in the game and thus again a fairly reasonable metamagic stacking platform.

Outside Core you have Ray of Stupidity (kinda broken vs. animals and other things with low Int; no save just-be-in-coma), Create Magical Tattoo (tho it only gets awesome with higher caster level), Baleful Transposition, Combust (superb metamagic platform), Sonorous Hum (concentrates for you), etc.


Level 3 has Dispel Magic, Stinking Cloud, Sleet Storm, Haste, Slow, Phantom Steed, Fly, Magic Circle, Greater Magic Weapon, Ray of Exhaustion, Heroism, Deep Slumber, Flame Arrow, [Non-Core] Anticipate Teleport, Alter Fortune, Bands of Steel, Spiderskin, etc. Too many good spells to explain and list.

[AttilaTheGeek]

Sig silliness aside, I really like Scorching Ray. It's a poor wizard's Disintegrate :smalltongue:

[Story]

I'm surprised noone's mentioned Nerveskitter or Kelgore's Grave Mist yet.


Also, Alter Fortune seems rather useless without Spontaneous Divination.

[gorfnab]

Regal Procession (3rd level spell, SpC) - when you first look at it's Mount/CL, so basically a way to provide horses/transportation for your entire party. However it works great as a battlefield control spell since it can fill up area with horses. Works nicely in naval combat since you could use it to fill up the deck of an enemy ship (it could potentially sink the ship because of the weight of the horses + barding + regalia). Quite amusing with the feat Invisible Spell as well.

[ArcturusV]

Oh, and Augury. Love that one too. Divinations of any ilk are always powerful.

[JeminiZero]

Augury (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/augury.htm) is a cleric spell however.

1) Summon Component (CM): You likely won't actually need this on a regular basis. But on the off chance that you are stripped of your gear and imprisoned (and you didn't take Eschew Materials), you want this tattoo'ed on yourself somewhere.
1) Hoard Gullet (Dragon Magic)
2) chain of Eyes (SpC):
3) Disobedience (CSc): Like Protection Against X, but lasts all day. It has range, so can be chained across the entire party.
3) Heart of Water (CM): Freedom of Movement! The Water Breath is gravy.
3) Greater Mighty Wallop (Races of Dragon): A beatstick buff.
3) Unluck (SpC): Debuff- Roll twice, take the lower of the two.
3) Dimension Step (PHB2): Every party member teleports up to their move action.
3) Shrink Item (Core): Too many uses, not least of which is the Tin Foil Hat trick.

[Agincourt]

Dark Way is a good one. It allows you to create a temporary, "unbreakable" "bridge". I say "bridge" because while you can indeed use it to cross gaps, it's real utility comes from using it vertically to create low level unbreakable walls.


I had to google this one and I only found a 3.0 version for Clerics from Magic of Faerun. Is there a 3.5 update that makes this a wiz/sor spell?

[Deophaun]

I had to google this one and I only found a 3.0 version for Clerics from Magic of Faerun. Is there a 3.5 update that makes this a wiz/sor spell?
It's in the Spell Compendium as wiz/sorc.

[catsora]

Glitterdust is a very popular spell, and a personal favorite.

It's (sort of) counterpart, invisibility, is a classic and almost always useful for something.

I also like the subtle nature of most enchantment spells. Sleep and charm person are well known, but lots of other are fun too: like pathfinder's unnatural lust.

Oh man unnatural lust is a real giggle maker, hey fighter make out with that troll.