What kind of spells would an academic/industrial wizard have prepared?

[typespace]

In the line of fabricate or major creation.

The summon monster line of spells would have surprising utility in academia or industry.

Polymorph any object also.

Moment of prescience for obvious reasons.

Mmm... divination spells would be pretty OP for a lot of academia/industry. Need to find energy resource? Discern location, scrying, vision. Need to know obscure physics? Contact other plane with relevant entity.

Wall of force would be amazing. It can't be destroyed or damaged? It can't move? What happens if I cast it in a moving ship's interior? If it moves along with the ship, destroy the ship after casting it and watch it push a load (permanency too). Fix a turbine to the load and voila, arbitrarily large amounts of energy.

If it doesn't move along with the ship, cast it in the ship's interior, put a load with a turbine on either side, and have the ship move back and forth. Arbitrarily large amounts of energy again.

I feel like animate objects would be really useful, if the description didn't specify that the objects are definitely attacking.

And, of course, all academic and industrial wizards would grab Craft (trapmaking). Trapmaking w/ magic is pretty much sci fi engineering.

Anything else, in or out of core?

[Gildedragon]

Even better: fabricate on the wall of force to make riverine items

[Slipperychicken]

Scholar's Touch (Sorc/Wiz 1). Read ALL THE BOOKS.

[Chronos]

Legend Lore would be of great use to a historian.

[Slipperychicken]

Legend Lore would be of great use to a historian.

Same goes for Teleport Through Time.

[Humble Master]

Wall of Stone is quite useful for basically everything building related.

[Slipperychicken]

Wall of Stone is quite useful for basically everything building related.

Wall of Salt is awesome for unhealthy snacks.

Combo with Plant Growth on potato farms to subsidize french fry production.

[avr]

Maybe not all the time, but comprehend languages to read old tomes, detect magic/arcane sight to analyse odd magical phenonema, summon monster II for excavation or tunnelling.

[Erik Vale]

Conjuration based might have the planar bindingline and magic circle against X spells.

[typespace]

Undermaster, contingency, and craft contingency.

[drack]

Refluffing old spells to sound industrial-ey always works well. :smallbiggrin: (And of course all spells that have "iron" in their names. :smalltongue:

[JaronK]

Unseen Crafter is amazing... I'd use it all day long! And don't forget Magecraft.

JaronK

[Gildedragon]

Instant potion: to quickly and easily water botanical experiments/ cheaply inject test subjects

[Slipperychicken]

Some rich hooligan might want to have a Magnificent Mansion (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/magesMagnificentMansion.htm) to throw a party in (and not have to clean it up either). You might have one or two prepared on Fridays or special occasions when you expect someone to need a truly bangin' party or feast for 156+ people. Also for charity, when you have a 7th level slot open at the end of the day (give 156+ homeless people food, shelter, relative safety, and nice comfy beds for 26+ hours? That's got to be good for your alignment).

Actually, a smart hedge-wizard would leave at least some of his spell-slots open to be filled during the day. This way, if someone needs a situational niche spell, you can provide it after only 15 minutes of preparation (instead of telling them they have to come back tomorrow). That's a huge advantage in terms of convenience, which would definitely increase your chances of repeat business, and some might even pay extra for it.

So the hedge-wizard might actually have prepared very few spells, aside from what was previously commissioned of him (i.e. "I'm going to need a Greater Teleport to this conference in 3 weeks, so I'll pay a little extra so you keep one reserved for me").