what spells have the best scaling?

[CyberThread]

What spells that you lern at lower levels, scale well into higher levels.

[Ramza00]

Define low levels? Are we talking level 2 spells, level 3, or level 4 spells?

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

Any no-save-just-suck, like Grease, or save-and-suck-anyways like Downdraft. They don't really scale as such but they're always useful, unlike something like Sleep. Wings of Flurry is uncapped force damage, which is great, and WoF is only a level 4 spell (ref half though). Wings of Cover is a great addition to any spellbook.

[Captnq]

Fang Trap.

No cap. May or may not do 2d4/caster level.

[eggynack]

Y'know, I've actually been thinking about this lately. I think that what you really want out of low level spells is long duration buffs and utility spells. Basically, stuff that won't have an action cost, because at high levels you care far more about actions spent than spells spent. This also includes spells with a swift or immediate action casting time. I'll list some early druid spells, cause I've been staring at pages of druid spells for weeks now. At first level, you have stuff like blockade, longstrider, and omen of peril. At second level, you get stuff like luminous armor, primal hunter, heart of air, and maybe wild instincts. Also, blood snow, because that spell becomes pretty great when you get blizzard. Out of that list, I probably wouldn't prepare a single one of them the level I get it. Third level spells are significantly better at scaling into crazy high levels, with stuff like alter fortune, heart of water, greater magic fang, primal instinct, whispering sand, and maybe stone shape and wind wall, because those do the same thing at high levels as low ones.

[Zanos]

Any no-save-just-suck, like Grease, or save-and-suck-anyways like Downdraft. They don't really scale as such but they're always useful, unlike something like Sleep. Wings of Flurry is uncapped force damage, which is great, and WoF is only a level 4 spell (ref half though). Wings of Cover is a great addition to any spellbook.
How are you getting a sorc only spell into your spellbook? Because I certainly wouldn't mind some of them on my wizard.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

He just said spells that you learn; no class was specified. I was using spellbook in a non-mechanical sense.

Wings of Flurry can be imitated through Shadowcraft Mage. Changelings could enter Recaster, which has two instances of Expanded Knowledge.

[Equinox]

Best Scaling, eh? I'd say, Alter Self. Change into a Troglodyte, you'll have plenty of Scaling. BA-DAM!

[Gadora]

How are you getting a sorc only spell into your spellbook? Because I certainly wouldn't mind some of them on my wizard.

Wyrm Wizard? One of the two readings of Extra Spell?

[lsfreak]

Off the top of my head, haste is probably going to be among the best. Not only does the amount of damage per swing go up immensely with even a little bit of optimization, at higher levels it's more and more likely that people are getting the most out of the spell from the various ways they make sure they can always full attack, both through methods of movement that still allow full attacks, and various abilities to ensure they're not shut down by circumstances (teleports, flight, freedom of movement, etc).

But it kind of depends on what exactly you mean by scaling. The lowly fog cloud manages to knock out sneak attacks pretty damn well at every level. Nerveskitter makes that ever-wanted first action more likely. Neither really have scaling in and of themselves, but as rogues get higher level and rely more and more on sneaking (and get more and more attacks per round) fog cloud's impact becomes greater, and Nerveskitter gets better because what you can do by going first becomes closer and closer to one-action kills.

[Rubik]

Grease is devastating against mindless, non-flying, non-ethereal/incorporeal creatures even up to epic level. Heck, it's great for non-mindless creatures that otherwise qualify, even into epic levels, since, really, who takes ranks in Balance, anyway?

They're not exactly "spells," but many low level psionic powers are useful no matter what level you are. They're designed to scale, and it shows.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Spells that create an effect that's useful regardless of character level, such as Wings of Cover, Shrink Item, Wraithstrike, Shield, Nerveskitter, and Haste.

[Curmudgeon]

Greater Mighty Wallop is a 3rd-level spell, so it's available at Wizard level 5. It will keep giving effective size increases up to a maximum of +5 size categories (so from Small to Colossal) at CL 20. In addition, the duration of this buff is 1 hour/caster level, so it scales that way as well.

This single spell makes the amount of unarmed damage one aspect of the Monk class that's simply no longer an issue.